


no halo

by yuygeom



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bowers Gang - Freeform, Daddy Issues, Eventual Smut, F/M, It (2017) - Freeform, Neighbors, Patrick Hockstetter Has A Heart, Patrick Hockstetter is His Own Warning, Reader Insert, Slow Burn, also i adore him, but it does change him, no beta we die like men, patrick’s encounter with It doesn’t kill him, reader is Richie’s little sister, slightly canon derivative in terms of the timeframe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-10-14 21:24:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 51,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20607569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuygeom/pseuds/yuygeom
Summary: So maybe you’ve been wrong all along that Patrick’s just misunderstood rather than evil personified. And maybe it’s impossible for him to change — without outside intervention, that is.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello kids...... this is my first it fic & the first time i’ve written anything in AGES due to both mental & physical health issues, so i hope it doesn’t read too rusty!! i adore this book and like the movies. wanna say first off that i abhor patrick in the books & don’t think he’s redeemable at all but i unfortunately am not immune to owen teague being weirdly attractive, so this fic was born — keeping patrick true to his borderline-satan nature but building a storyline around it that makes me feel less guilty for my villain boner ! this does include pennywise and him doing all his nice evil influence and murdery shit (with a slightly offset timeline) but its more of a plot device than a focal point tbh LOL
> 
> PSA - reader is , as i hope is obvious, richie’s lil sister by like a year and a half & these first few chapters are just building that storyline & introducing the toziers’ relationship to patrick from childhood to teen years. hoping 2 update veryyyy regularly! as in expect one tomorrow! also i listen to hella music while i write so i’m probably gonna have lil playlists at the start of each chapter after this one 
> 
> okay anyways... enjoy, if you dare

“Richie.”

You tug at your big brother’s shirttail with increasing urgency. He ignores it, jerking the joystick of the new Street Fighter machine around like a madman. “Richierichierichie. Richie?”

”Jee-_zus_!” The machine displays a colourful **GAME OVER** and he finally turns to look at you. “Can I help you, you little twerp? What’d you do, run out of tokens for Dance Dance Revolution?”

You huff. That’s exactly what happened, but also... “Mom said don’t call me that. And she also said we gotta be home for dinner ‘else we don’t get to come back to the arcade til next month. Remember?”

Though Richie’s mouth opens, probably to argue that you’re rushing him or something dumb like that, you point a sparkly pink-painted fingertip at the retro-looking orange clock on the wall above the door of the building. Sure enough, the hands read just after five, which means you’ll be lucky to make it all the way back across town for five-thirty on bicycles. 

“_Shiiiiiiit_, you couldn’t’a warned me?” He cusses you out and tries to gather up all of his extra tokens without dropping them. “Here, goddamn, be useful and put these in your girly little bike basket.”

You take the handful, but not without a carefully constructed glare and a mumbled reminder that if somebody would keep an eye on the clock for themselves, warning wouldn’t be necessary. Plus, Richie has a really cool watch that he got when he turned nine in March, and it’s no one’s fault but his that he refuses to wear it on the grounds that its Bugs Bunny cartoon design is too babyish. Daddy won’t even let you wear it instead because he says watches aren’t ladylike, or something. When you turn eight in the fall, you’ve already decided to use the birthday money from Grandma to buy your own watch, and that way Daddy can’t tell you not to wear it. 

Despite you being the one to point out the need to leave, Richie almost drags you out of the place. The two of you unchain your bikes and get on your way, the weight of the tokens in your basket making you swerve off balance every once in awhile. You would complain, but Richie’s been sad lately. He seems upset that school’s starting up again in a few days. Although he hides it well from Mom and Daddy all year, you know some older boys have been picking on him. Sometimes he cries about it at night when he thinks everybody is asleep.

You look over at him. The evening sun glares off of his thick glasses as the two of you ride in sync down the road. Richie’s real smart, and you guess he’ll probably be handsome someday too. It seems stupid that kids would be mean to him. If you did have to make an assumption, it might have something to do with the way he runs his mouth, especially when he gets nervous. Most of his rambling is funny to you, though.

“Love you, Richie,” you singsong. He scoffs and tries to pedal ahead. You can see the blush on his cheeks, though, and his grin matches yours. A niggling little worry tugs in your chest — next year he’ll be gone to Derry Middle and leave you all alone for a whole year. Daddy always says he’s more worried about how Richie will get on without you than the other way around. He’s probably right. Still, it gets you nervous.

Home is far away from the busy main streets, closer to the outskirts in what might be considered the tougher side of Derry. The sky burns dusky orange by the time you roll up the right street. Even from a few houses away, there’s a faint cooked-meat smell coming from your own house that says you’re almost late. Almost.

”Just drop the bike,” Richie half-yells. He does just that himself. You mimic him. “Leave the tokens in your basket and we’ll come back to get ‘em after dinner, just hurry up before Mom loses her shit!”

Your dirty sneakers pit-a-pat on the gravel and kick up dust at the same time that you’re inhaling Richie’s. He throws our front door open and disappears inside. You mean to follow right away, but a creaking sound comes from next door and makes you pause. A look over shows the Hockstetters’ door is latched; a look up gives you the culprit of the noise. 

Patrick, the neighbour kid and a classmate of Richie’s (though a year and a half older from being held back twice), leans out of a second-floor window and stares down at you. His unruly mop of dark hair has been funny to you for as long as you can remember. That almost-angry stare? Not so much. But something about him has always made you want to be sweet to him, even in spite of that strange stare.

”Hi, Patrick.” You wave and offer a big smile. He looks kind of surprised for a brief second. “Be careful up there!”

”You be careful,” he snaps.

You never know what to say to Patrick when he acts like that, which is more or less all the time. It doesn’t seem like anybody’s nice to him, though, never at school where he sits at his own empty lunch table, and sometimes you can hear his parents yelling through the night. So you keep your smile on and tell him, “I will!”

Richie’s frantic voice beckons you into the house and you remember what you should be doing.

“I have to go.” You wave up again at the boy hanging from the window. “Bye-bye, Patrick!” He might say something back, or maybe you’re imagining it, but either way you’re in the house and shutting the door without hearing what it is. If the dishes clanging in the kitchen are any clue, you and your brother got home with just a few minutes to spare.

Daddy works late on Fridays. Only Mom, Richie and you settle down at the table with a few meatballs each and some limp pasta. Richie catches your eye and mouths _Dinner for kings!_ when Mom’s not paying attention. You giggle through a bite of dry meat.

”What was your favourite part of today, honey?” Mom pulls out a conversation starter after a short span of quiet munching and fork-scraping. She looks first to Richie and receives a shrug.

”Gotta high score on a new game,” he offers. “And I still have lots of leftover tokens in [Y/N]’s bike basket for tomorrow.” You beam, pleased to have been of use.

Mom gives him a Look, capital L. “We’ll have to see if you get to go anywhere tomorrow with the messy state of your room, mister.” Richie makes a mocking little ‘blah-blah’ sound, but he shuts up when the Look gets more stern. “How about you, sweetheart?” 

Your turn. “I like to watch Richie play,” you muse, “and the dancing game uses my tokens real fast so I only did that for part of the time.” That’s all you can come up with for a few moments. “Oh! And I said hi to Patrick and he told me to be careful.”

That must not sound very exciting. Mom chews slowly. “He told you to be careful because you said hi to him?”

”No.” You shrug. “I dunno. Kinda forget. It’s okay! He’s nice.”

For once, Richie seems to agree with an adult; he and Mom both raise an eyebrow in your direction. This happens almost every time the neighbour comes up in conversation. Patrick’s just never seemed that bad to you. Shrugging again for lack of anything else to do, you go back to poking your pasta with ill-concealed disgust. 

“Just....” Mom gives a sigh. “Don’t be too friendly, [Y/N]. Patrick doesn’t behave like most kids do, like most kids should. Quit playing with your food!” That last piece is for both of you kids, your brother looking hard at you and stabbing a meatball blindly. “I mean it. I’d love a gourmet spread too, you know, but your father’s wage got decreased again this month, and I can’t pick up any more hours at the pharmacy.”

The guilttrip gets you both back on track to clearing plates. More than anything, you don’t wanna leave any leftovers for lunch tomorrow. The dish is gross enough without having to be reheated too.

You’ve been learning how to wash dishes good and proper this summer, so you stay in with Mom to clean the meal up while Richie saunters back outside to retrieve the arcade coins. A little tune worms into your head as you scrub and you hum quietly. It feels like the summer has gone too fast, the whole year, even, and it doesn’t show any sign of slowing down soon. The last day of school could’ve practically been yesterday, riding the cheesy-yellow bus home in the burning heat with Richie’s sweaty arm pressed against yours. That painful little twang resonates in your heart again as you imagine fourth grade next year without him. The two of you are best friends, mostly because neither of you talks very much to anyone else. Lots of kids whisper about the part of Derry you live in like you’re dirty. _Well, scrub-a-dub,_ you think to yourself, polishing the last fork. _I think I’m squeaky clean_.

”ASSWIPE!” Richie’s voice suddenly rings out pitchy and wild from the street. You almost drop the fork from the sudden loudness. Mom looks more horrified by the language. “STUPID – NASTY – SHITHEAD!”

”Richard!” She gasps and makes a mad dash for the front yard. You carefully place the fork in its drawer, only turning to follow the yells when you’re satisfied with your work. Richie’s potty mouth doesn’t startle you much anymore as long as it’s not you being targeted by the name-calling. He’s started making rude jokes too, but says you’re too little to understand what they mean, so they don’t bug you hardly at all — only that he refuses to tell you exactly what it is you don’t understand.

When you make it outside, it’s nearly full dark and no stars twinkle in the sky. Richie’s still spitting bad words, a little more softly but just as mad, while Mom leans over him where he sits by the abandoned bikes. “They can’t all be gone, Rich, honey, they wouldn’t just vanish–“

”Like FUCK they vanished,” your brother howls back up at full volume. He ignores the gasp from Mom and stabs a finger at the house next door. “He fuckin’ GRABBED ‘em, I swear, that gawky motherf–“

”Richard,” Mom says. She’s deathly calm all of a sudden. Where she was only just prodding around the lawn to look for what you assume must be missing tokens, now she grabs Richie’s arm harder than you’ve ever seen her do. The nails dig in visibly even from ten feet away where you are. “You are being an embarrassment. Watch that trashy mouth before I rinse it with soap, and take care of your little trinkets if you don’t want them to disappear!”

With that, she drags him back across the grass and they bump you on the way through the front door. Neither notices. Mom’s face is red like a sunburn and Richie, having been frozen in shock at the outburst, starts to cry now. You feel like crying too. She never talks like that or puts her hand on either of you — that’s a Daddy job. She’s supposed to be gentle. You try to trail them back inside again, but it feels like you can’t move. 

The bushes rustle.

You jump. A shaggy head peeks out from between the two houses.

”Did you take our tokens?” you ask Patrick disbelievingly. You’ve seen him push kids around a bit and pull the wings off of dead flies, but he’s never even really given you or Richie a second glance. Now he just looks at you for what feels like a very long time. It appears that he doesn’t even blink. After a minute, you grow antsy, upset, and start to cry just a little. Daddy says that’s not ladylike either. Patrick, on the other hand, looks once again like he’s caught off guard.

”Damn,” he says. “Turn off the waterworks, you baby.” You sniffle, even more hurt at being called a baby. You must be making him uncomfortable enough to stop being so stone-cold. A hand stretches out to you and you grab at the fistful of silver it offers. Not all of the tokens by a long shot, but enough to make Richie feel better, or at least you sure hope it is. You hold them close to your chest.

”Why– why’d you do that, Patrick?” Your voice does sound babyish. It makes you cringe. Patrick does the same. Then he slinks back to his own property without another word, disappearing into the dark with no trace except for the open-close of the door.

He must be nice, you reason with yourself, back inside and climbing the stairs to where you hear Richie’s faint sobbing. He gave some of them back, after all. Gave them back to you.

When you knock on the bedroom door, all that comes in response is an angry sound. So you sit down on the pulled carpet and start to slide tokens underneath the crack of Richie’s door one by one. You can tell he notices because he stops crying so hard.

The door opens a tiny sliver when you’ve moved the last coin through the space. A glasses-magnified eye peeks out. You giggle in spite of yourself. It doesn’t matter that much, you guess, if Mom’s acting mean or Patrick isn’t as nice as you wish he were, as long as you and your brother can still be happy. You plant a smacking wet kiss on Richie’s cheek once his door has opened enough to allow it. Though he goes “Ugh!” and wipes it off, you think he smiles a little bit.

”Nasty li’l stinka, ain’t’cha?” he drawls in a suddenly Scottish tone, sending you rolling with laughter until your tummy hurts.

You two build a blanket fort on his floor together to have a ‘sleepover’ that night, heading back to the arcade again on Saturday morning after you help him clean up his war zone of a closet. One last good weekend before school gets back in session. 

In the months that follow, Patrick doesn’t catch your eye in school or in the neighbourhood very much at all. Mom never apologizes for being so harsh to Richie, but the important part is that she doesn’t do it again, and that strange August night is mostly forgotten. Mostly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go lil timeskip of like two years give or take
> 
> i swear it’ll start getting more interestinf in a hot minute !! next chapter we r entering Teenage Years so i can go sicko mode with Certain Things yo

Though Richie had indeed struggled through fifth grade without his baby sister (or so you like to think), you didn’t exactly thrive either that year. Fourth grade had seemed neverending, like you’d be trapped alone in Derry Elementary forever. The start of fifth grade at Derry Middle had in comparison felt like flying.

Now, though, at the end of the school year, you feel that same loneliness again. Richie’s somehow made a massive group of friends — some other kids who are kinda outsiders like you two. You haven’t made any at all. Daddy says jealousy isn’t ladylike, but you’re not jealous. You’re happy he has people to talk to. Just lonely. 

That loneliness hasn't gotten you into trouble yet, but it feels right now like that’s bound to happen. Kids have gone missing here and there lately. You know how dumb it is for a ten-year-old girl to be roaming around by herself even without any apparent kidnappings going on, but heck if you’re going to lounge around at home forever while Richie’s off playing in the creek or whatever with the friends he likes so very much more than you.

”Me!” you mutter to yourself. It’s a late June afternoon, and the well-trodden pathway into the shallow woods looks like it’ll at least get you out of the beating sun for awhile. “His sister. More important than _me!_”

The self-pitying grumbles keep on coming like you’ve opened floodgates as you stomp through the mossy forest with no particular destination in mind. Your backpack feels unnecessary, so you check the surroundings and give yourself a good mental picture before sliding it off your shoulders and dropping it to the side of the path. It’s empty. Last day of school. If any jerk does happen to come along and take it, there’s nothing in it worth having.

For awhile, you just walk where the trail takes you, winding around thick foliage, an eye kept on your worn-out Tweety Bird wristwatch to ensure that time doesn’t start to slip away. Daddy will be all too happy to see the thing break. That’s infuriating if you think about it, too. Richie and your father have been getting along so well lately that you’re hardly convinced they even remember you’re part of the family. You’ve gotten to be a little less girly, too, and that means even Mom’s not sure what to do with you. 

That stupid feeling of isolation threatens to crush you with its weight.

You shake off the distress just in time to glance up and stop short right before walking straight into Henry Bowers and his gang. Into a clearing that they’re roaming around in, anyways. 

Henry himself is turned somewhat in your direction but doesn’t appear to notice the foreign presence, so you take the opportunity to duck off to the side of the path under a bush that offers both hiding spot and viewpoint. Blood rushes in your head.

It’s the usual crew that you see here and there around your area of Derry. On their skateboards more often than not. You’ve all grown up almost together. Henry, Victor, Belch (“Why he would pick a nickname like that over ‘Reggie’, I can’t imagine,” your mother’s haughty voice echoes in your head) and — is that Patrick?

Your jaw drops. He’s been a lone wolf since forever. This friendship, if that’s what it is, must be pretty new. Sure enough, he’s lounging next to Vic on a huge dead log, looking less than concerned by whatever it is Henry’s ranting about at present.

”—little fucking snitching fatboy,” he’s shouting. Pacing back and forth. Only a few metres away from your hiding spot. You’ve never seen Henry or any of them be too hard on any girl, but if he’s already worked up.... the bush will rustle if you let yourself shiver, so you don’t.

The kid he’s angry with must be Ben Hanscom just going by that single descriptor, you realize, and feel dread crawl over your skin. Ben’s one of Richie’s friends. Probably hanging out with him right now. The only reason your brother’s never caught a Bowers beating is more than likely because you all grew up on the same few rundown streets; went to the same church on Christmas; sledded down the same hill when February brought blizzards. Sense of community or whatever. That won’t keep him out of the crossfire if Henry’s looking for Ben, though.

You could run, you think. Try to escape quietly and make it to that nasty sewer hole the boys are always hanging around to warm them. Or you could go find an adult? No. That’d make you a tattletale, and a real stupid one at that. Henry and his buddies would never leave you alone if they found out you’d set a grown-up on them. You like your face intact, thanks very much. Maybe some kind of distraction could keep them here for awhile — Richie’s usually home just before sundown, and the light is starting to wane—

All this thinking is a distraction. You don’t happen to notice you’re about to sneeze until the outburst shocks its way from your airways, deafening through the green clearing. Sometimes Mom says her heart ‘just skipped a beat’ when Richie scares her with Halloween masks or whatever. Yours? It feels like it stops beating entirely.

Henry had frozen in his tracks with the sound. Now he turns back in your direction, taking slow, measured steps nearer until he’s got those beat-up engineer boots four inches away from your perch within the bush.

The silence lingers for so long you manage to convince yourself he’ll just walk away, he can’t see you, the sneeze could have been a bird call or something, anything. Just as an iota of the rigidity starts to seep from your tensed muscles, a filthy hand reaches blindly into the shrubbery and fumbles around your blouse collar. Maybe you scream.

Once he’s secured a hold, Henry yanks you out and you hit the ground rolling with a bone-rattling thud.

”Well, lookie here, we’ve got a _girl!_” He slaps his thigh in an exaggerated display of appreciation. “To what do we owe the pleasure, little princess? Come looking for the big bad wolf?”

Clearly, nobody’s ever read Henry Bowers a storybook if he’s mixing up any princess tale with Little Red Riding Hood. This is not the time to bring that up. You flounder for something to say, mouth opening and closing in frenetic little twitches. All the while, he creeps closer to where you’ve landed in the grass, that hand starting to reach down again. 

You whimper, paralyzed by panic.

”You’ve come to the right place if that’s what you’re lookin’ for, princess, but you know I just can’t have you telling anybody where me and my boys hang around—“

”She’s Trashmouth’s little sister,” a bored voice interrupts. Both you and Henry look wildly around for the source. Vic and Belch both watch the situation unfold with attentive eyes from their respective perches, but Patrick’s stretched out like he’s relaxing on a beach, making eye contact with you. “Won’t snitch. Will you, Tozier?”

You’d been trembling only seconds ago. If you were anyone else in the whole town, child or adult, Patrick Hockstetter’s unsettling presence alone would make this a losing battle. For some reason  it does the polar opposite. The shaking subsides.

”’Course I won’t snitch.” You prop yourself upright on your elbows, confidence growing out of nowhere. “Do I look like an idiot to you?”

Four sets of eyes give you the once-over. Ten years old, glossy dark hair to match your brother's, ragged jean shorts that look not quite right with your ruffly blouse. It’s dirty from the ground now. You know what you look like — a kid from the rough side, scruffy just like these boys even if the carefully-placed barrette behind your ear is shiny and new. A hair clip doesn’t clear you a path to Derry Middle’s inner circle of girls, you’ve found; maybe the scabs on your knees will make one into Henry Bowers’ gang of hardass boys.

No. You don’t look like an idiot. 

You raise your head to meet Henry’s gaze, chin squared. You must look like you have the potential to be a hardass too.

”So you’re a Tozier,” Henry drawls. “Little Tozier. So tell me, Little Tozier, where do your brother and his little pansy pals like to be around, say, four o'clock?”

”I’m not gonna tell you that.” You look over to the side and Patrick stares back, level and unsympathetic. “That’s my big brother. You can just go ahead and leave him be.” Alarm bells are going off in your brain, but the boldness persists.

That makes Patrick’s upper lip twitch ever so slightly. Above, Henry snorts in clear disbelief. You get the feeling he doesn’t hear the word ‘no’ all that often.

”Or what, Little Tozier?” He resumes the hulking stance from earlier like a bear trying to upsize itself and seem more predatory. 

It strikes you that these boys are big; not much older, only eleven and twelve, but Vic is the closest to your height still standing six inches taller. Henry’s broad, upper arms wrapped with thick ropes of muscle though nothing compared to Belch’s sheer mass. Of course gangly Patrick stands the tallest, but even with that strange appeal he’s always held for you, he’s by far the most intimidating with or without stature. These aren’t kids to mess with. So you make a snap decision to steer this encounter somewhere else.

Dusting off your bare legs, you stand, trying to still your tremors again, and look as solidly at Henry as you can manage. Not quite a challenge, but not submission. “My name’s [Y/N]. And of course I’m not gonna tell you where Richie is, but I know other stuff that I could tell you.”

”Like what?” That comes from Vic. The other boys are stood up and seem to be gravitating towards the edge of the clearing to surround you two.

You don’t even have to think about it. “Sam Talbot was the one who told the vice principal that you lit the garbage can on fire in January,” you tell Vic in particular. He cocks his head to the side. “He’s that little redhead with the army jacket. I heard him tell his friends.”

”What else do you hear?” Back to Henry.

A lot, is the general answer. You’re almost invisible to everyone outside of your family. Kids talk about anything and everything with you in earshot because as far as they care, they’re alone. Sam Talbot used to steal your juice boxes during lunch, so you don’t feel too awful for having given him up. If only that were all you had to give.

”Lots. Greta Bowie has a crush on Belch and her little sister stole his Zippo lighter to give to her.”

Belch’s eyes widen. “The orange one?” 

You nod. “Donny Willis got you guys busted for drinking beer during Easter break. He also asked Katie out before Henry got the chance just to bug Henry, even though I don’t think Donny even likes girls.” That one elicits a surprised chorus of snickers. “Ashley Nickason made her mom tell Patrick’s mom about the flies in his pencilcase, and Richie....”

The trail-off has them all leaning closer, probably without intending to, hanging onto your words. Even Patrick’s adopted an expression akin to interest. 

“Richie didn’t do anything,” you conclude. “Nothin’ at all, so how ‘bout pick on the kids who actually did.”

A short time passes where nobody’s face is readable. They’re all so very close to you, giving eachother communicative stares. Nerves tighten your stomach. Acting tough doesn’t strike you naturally, let alone outright challenging someone like Henry, bigger and older and meaner, and a boy. The burst of assertiveness starts to fade as you try to weigh the options for running away versus apologizing for getting an attitude.

Neither winds up being needed.

A legitimate grin cracks open on Henry’s sun-worn face. “Fuckin’ _feisty,_ Little Tozier!” he hollers. The other boys start to hoot out laughs. Not quite _at_ you, though, you notice with unsuspecting pleasure. “Damn straight we’ll pick on those shitstains you’re talking about. All that intel just to leave ol’ Four-Eyes and his creepshow crew alone, ho-_ly_ cow.”

Belch looks longingly into the distance. ”I’ve been trying to find that lighter for a month.” 

The gang of them disperses back across the green space now, all regarding you differently than before. Vic pats a flat rock in beckoning.

”Feel free to sit here and try to think up any other shit you might’a forgot.” He used to come over and play Legos with Richie when you were in nursery school, you recall. He’s never been so volatile as Henry nor so unnerving as Patrick is to the general public. Really, Vic could be almost popular if he’d been born three avenues to the right. You take the seat and settle down criss-cross with a grateful nod. All the while, Patrick lurks by his log and eyes you without a word. 

Belch notices the tension there growing thick enough to cut. “Just Hockstetter being Hockstetter,” he assures you. You know that, of course, and you also somehow know how to make Hockstetter just a tad less Hockstetter.

”Do you wanna sit, Patrick? I can make room. Promise.” You scoot over to one half of the rock. 

Everyone else goes still, caught off guard by you yet again, with Patrick as the exception. Yet again. Never misses a beat. He gives you a face familiar by now from a short lifetime of small talk always initiated on your part — it’s not a look deep enough to be confused, but it’s without a doubt questioning. In the past, it’s meant _why are you talking to me_ and _why do you care_ among others. Today it more closely resembles _what do you think you’re doing_. That’s not actually something you know the answer to. (A rarity.)

”I’ll stand, [Y/N],” he says evenly. It’s the first time he’s ever said your name. You prefer it over ‘baby’ in that mocking tone he’d used on the fateful night of the arcade tokens and Henry’s ‘Little Tozier’. 

Victor and Belch go back to whatever they must have been doing before you showed up, playing some kind of poker-like game with pebbles among themselves. There’s a silence that manages to be nearly comfortable. Henry leans back in the grass and regards you with curiosity. You try to keep your head up, feeling weirdly more intimidated now that they seem to have accepted you being there.

”You do girly shit?” Henry interrogates all of a sudden.

”Not a whole lot.” Hardly any of the precious few things Daddy does consider to be ladylike, if you’re being truthful. Still washing dishes. No playing with dolls, nor much interest in shopping with what meager pocket money you can come by.

”Bake?”

”I can do that.”

”Bring cookies or something tomorrow, then.” He clams back up and pulls a Marlboro out of nowhere. Belch reaches over to cup a helpful hand around it as he lights up. 

Vic shakes his head. “Bowers, man, she’s a little girl, not—“

”I’ll bring them,” you interrupt. “And I’m not so much younger than you.” Careful to say younger rather than smaller, because you’re barely half the size of most of them. All you’re focused on is the promise of tomorrow. Now giddiness sparks behind your eyes. Is this an ideal group to hang around? Of course not. Do you have anywhere else to be, anyone else to see? Hardly ever. You’ll take the subtle invitation with no protest, especially now that you’ve (at least for the time being) blacklisted your big brother and his friends from the Bowers gang’s wrath. Cookies are a measly price to pay for half-decent company.

”No,” Vic agrees slowly. “No, not so much.”

Patrick kicks at the log with a steel-toed boot. A branch snaps off.

⚘⚘⚘

“Bowers, you crackhead? _Bowers?” _

"No, listen,” you try. Richie’s already lightyears beyond listening. He rocks back and forth on your bedroom floor like a madman at this revelation.

”[Y/N], that dickweed picked me up and dropped me in the trash can every day for our first month at the middle school, he’s some kind of sadist, I’m lucky he’s never took after me ‘n’ the Losers yet, _motherfucker—“_

”And he won’t,” you say. Richie takes a breather.

”He won’t?”

You shake your head. “I said no.”

”Motherfucker,” Richie declares again. “You said no?”

Nod.

_”No?”_

Nod.

”That’s _it?”_

”I had some other ideas for what kind of shit-disturbing they could be doing,” you admit. The curse rolls off your tongue with odd ease given it being the first time you’ve used much worse of a word than ‘stupid’. _Two Trashmouth Toziers,_ you think drily. Isn’t that just all the world needs. “So they like me as some sorta source for information, I guess. Cuz you know nobody at school pays attention to me enough to know when I’m listening to ‘em. Also, I bake for them.”

Richie asks anyways, though you know he’s well aware of the answer. “‘Them’?”

”Henry, Victor, Belch.” You list off the classic crew. “Patrick too.”

That earns you a noise of true concern, rare from Richie nowadays. Only in recent weeks through the last month of summer has he even been noticing that you’re out with ‘friends’ every single day. Long gone are the ages of the two of you being joined at the hip, him always noticing any slight change in your mood or routine sometimes before you’d notice it yourself. It hurts if you think on it for a second too long.

”Patrick.” Richie pushes his glasses up. “Shit, you’ve always trailed him everywhere like a lost puppy. Fuck is that about? You know he’s, like, seriously messed in the head?”

Nobody _knows_ for sure, but you’ve indeed heard that plenty. Rumours about Patrick’s enrolment in therapy and the truckload of meds he’s prescribed, neither of which he chooses to utilize. Darker secrets only whispered — his baby brother’s cradle death and the abandoned fridge in the deep woods. You don’t know how to reconcile them with the character you just _know_ lurks somewhere inside Patrick’s seemingly hollow shell. He’s only grown more enigmatic since you’ve started seeing him on the regular. Never excitable nor irritable or anything in between. 

“Didn’t trail him,” you try to argue. “I was just nice to him because nobody else was gonna be.”

”Probably a reason for that, señorita.”

You give him a look. You’re working on the capital L.

”Fuck, okay.” Running a hand through his floppy bangs, he concedes. “Fuck. I won’t tell Mom and Dad.”

”Definitely not Daddy.” Christ, if ironing the pleats in your skirt the wrong way is unladylike, you don’t want to imagine what he’d say upon learning just who your pals are and how you only ever see them in the forest or the back alleys of downtown Derry. It’s not as bad as Richie’s Barrens, but it’s not exactly the town square either. 

“Yeah, yeah. Just make me some promises, will ya?”

You know this game. It’s unwise to commit too early. In lieu of response, you eye him warily.

He huffs. “Don’t get into any bad trouble, you know? If you can keep those jackasses out of my hair and in someone else’s, more power to ya. Just don’t be around if anything starts to go too far south.”

That’s fair enough. You’d thought of the same thing yourself. The boys hadn’t doled out many beatings since you’d been around, but the beginning of the school year would surely see an influx, and if you can’t stop them from going too hard on a kid you know you’ll just leave. It’s not like you enjoy what the Bowers gang does in that respect, but you tend to find it negligible the same way you can push the rumours about Patrick away into the back of your head.

“And keep your pants on,” Richie adds suddenly and bursts into hysterical laughter.

That one takes you by surprise. Surely it was meant to. You roll away across the floor until the wall meets your skull with a thunk. 

“I’m ten,” you remind him in a pitchy shriek. “Ten!”

”Boys don’t ca-are,” Richie wails in an operatic tone. “They want it anytime, they want it anywhe-ere.” He waggles his fingers eerily.

”I am going to kill you,” you tell him deadpan. To the point. Threatening. You’ve heard Henry do the same nice little preparatory description right before knocking someone’s teeth out. You can still learn, even if you refuse to be involved in the violence itself. “I’m not even in sex ed until the end of grade six, you’re so _nasty_, let the teachers tell me all the gross stuff so it sounds less gross! At least they know what they’re talking about!”

”_I_ know.” Richie seems offended.

”Sure you do. Sure you do, Richie.”

⚘⚘⚘

The strange inappropriate jokes from that morning fade out of your memory rapidly. Better that way; you feel childish enough around Henry and the boys sometimes. All the gritty shit they probably know about that kind of stuff is icky just to imagine. Perhaps it’s a blessing that you had too much prep for the upcoming start of school to do to be able to go see them today.

You think, though, that night after, laying in bed. You think you might not mind giving Patrick a kiss. The more icky stuff holds no appeal for you, not yet, but a kiss you wouldn’t mind. Might like it, even. He’s still an unbreakable case, as closed-off as he has been all his life, but you swear something about him isn’t what it looks like. Sounds like. Acts like. Is like. Something warmer lurking under the surface, trapped beneath his jarring silence and lack of emotion, which are only punctuated by mean jokes and the occasional alpha-male spat with Henry. Something behind the creature who — and you are more sure of it with every day that passes spending time with him — probably did kill his baby brother as a mere kindergartener. The creature who definitely does sneak off from the gang’s ventures to where he’s got some woodland animals suffocating in a fridge.

But he’s _pretty, _you can’t help but see. Pretty. Not like most boys. He won’t be the smart sort of handsome like Richie’s shaping up to be, the pleasantly rugged like Henry when everyone’s grown up. Patrick with his high cheekbones and sweep of dark hair and cherry-red mouth. He’ll just be beautiful, you know.

And you do want to give him a kiss. Very, very much.

It all feels too old for you all of a sudden, like you’re walking in shoes that belong to a person who has walked much further in life. You shove the unruly train of thought out of your head with your cheeks burning. Sixth grade starts tomorrow, but sleep won’t give you the grace of coming easily.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we goOo okay so reader is 13 almost 14 here, 3ish year timeskip, (there’ll be another minor one v soon no worries she’ll be Of an Acceptable Age anytime now) she’s finishing grade 8 so about to move up to the high school with richie n patrick n the whole bunch. we’ll say richies 15 n patrick’s like 16.ish. i want him to be a scorpio but that’d make the age gap like 4 years with reader being a september baby and that’s a LITTLEEEE much i guess so it’s fine whatevebr
> 
> warning for some brief dub/noncon near the end of the chapter! i wanna say that patrick is currently his psychopath self, doesn’t rly Feel shit, all that. For Now . i’ve tweaked the rest of the gang to be like in most fics where they’re a lil more friendly n tbh they just adore their girl like they Love her but we’ll get more into that later
> 
> anyways *chef’s kiss* bon appetit

Exam week, you feel, should be sacred. Sleeping for as long as possible is a reasonable if not necessary desire in the face of that magnitude of school stress, and the civilized world should recognize it as such.

Patrick Hockstetter is unfortunately not affiliated with the civilized world. This, he makes clear by sneaking through your window at six in the morning and shoving a spit-slick finger into your ear as a good-morning gift.

”Whuh?” You bolt upright. “I’m– who? Why?”

The familiar little cackle alerts you with your eyes still crusted closed. You try to blink the gummy feeling away. Days like these make you wish you’d been much less persistent in getting him to warm up to you. As warm as it seems he can ever get, anyhow.

”Got fuckin’ earwax on me,” he mutters. Like that’s anyone else’s fault. You hold out a stray corner of blanket for him to wipe the criminal finger on, resigned. “Gross. Your parents around?”

”Um.” The clock is blurry through your sleep-addled line of sight. You squint. “What is it, quarter after six? Fuck you, by the way. My dad’s gone to work but Mom’ll be asleep still. What do you even _want_ this early?”

He almost has the decency to look bashful. Keyword being ‘almost’. “Cereal.”

”I hope you die.” You roll over and shove your face into the pillow. “You know where everything is in the kitchen. Bowls in the left top cupboard and a box of Corn Pops or something on the floor in the pantry. And be fuckin’ quiet about it.” 

Footsteps recede out the door. Somehow they sound smug.

Patrick had taken the better part of a year to speak more than five words at a time to you. When that barrier came down at last, so did any semblance of social conduct. All year now he’s been using the half-dead tree on your side lawn to scale up to the bedroom window at varying hours of the day. Sometimes it’s for food, sometimes just boredom. Once in a blue moon he’ll emerge from his own house, chaotic with bellowed arguing in the late hours, sit with his head thrown back in your pink beanbag chair and stare at the ceiling without a peep. You’ve asked him if his parents upset him when they’re fighting like that, already expecting the answer.

”No.” Plain and simple.

You believe it. Same as you believe the horrific products of the rumour mill from a few years back. It’s like you’ve always thought. Sure, Patrick doesn’t feel much at all, at most the sense of being inconvenienced, the awareness of being cared for by people (namely yourself). And something close to vindictive anger. Nothing deeper. But the fact that he seeks out company in times such as that serves to tell you that something else in him does feel. Not something that you think Patrick himself even knows is there, but you’d swear on your life that you know. It frustrates you to no end that there’s so definitely something in him to open up, to unlock, but that the key is nowhere to be found.

”Why do you care about it so much if you know it’s a lost cause?” Vic had wondered the most recent time you’d brought that very topic up during a one-on-one hangout. “If you know you can’t make him any different?”

”I do know.” You did. You do. “But you know why I care, Vic.” And he did, and he does.

Victor and Richie, the two people entrusted with your take-it-to-your-grace secret, though hardly a secret to anyone with eyes and attention to detail. The childhood infatuation had grown up with you rather than gone away. Patrick couldn’t love you back, but that wasn’t enough to throw you off.

”Corn Pops suck balls,” his muffled voice declares. It startles you back out of semisleep. You’d strangle him for this whole rude awakening if you had the energy to lift a finger. Truly this is the ultimate dick move. Breaking and entering at an ungodly hour, waking you just to steal food he already knows how to get to, complaining about it now like Mr. Kellogg is supposed to be a gourmet chef. Dick move to the nth power.

”Suck it,” is all you manage. You can sense the reciprocal eye-roll. 

That’s another thing that’s seemed to evolve. Throughout childhood and early encounters with Henry’s gang, now your best friends, nothing about Patrick had been animated in the slightest. He’s been changing, though, you swear it, slow and steady shifts. Rolling his eyes is a normal response. When he comes around your place just for company, that’s pure human. It’s most absolutely a step up from blank stares and never seeking out the gang but waiting for them to come to him. It could have something to do with your presence as a girl shifting the group dynamic. You like to think it just has something to do with you, period.

”You need more sleep, too, ya know,” you point out, rolling over at last with resignation when he starts to crunch noisily. “It’s not just me.”

He sprawls on the beanbag. “Name one time you’ve seen me sleep.” 

Every time Patrick’s come over during a Hockstetter family feud, you’ve awoken the following morning to see him curled up on one side and snoring. You’ve learned not to mention those tiny vulnerable moments unless you want him shrinking back into his shell. “Never. You’re right. Just stay awake til you die, see if I care.”

The bowl is half-full still, but Patrick decides he’s done and sets it on the floor, already on to a new topic. “Gonna get all dolled up today?”

That’s in mocking referral to how you’ve been dressing all week. Your father’s been getting home from work early as of late, having been under the impression for the last few years that you dress like a proper little lady to go to school and only change to comfier clothes once you’ve stopped at home before leaving again. The untimely returns have almost gotten you caught — gasp — coming home at three looking downright _casual_. Daddy would lose his mind. So you’ve opted to suck it up and don your Sunday best until summer begins and you don’t have anywhere to be.

”You know I have to.” The ‘you douchebag’ suffix goes without saying.

”_Riiiiiiiight_. Never wanna disappoint Daddy, do ya, darlin’.”

Now that gets right on your nerves. As if Patrick doesn’t have enough of his own deep-rooted issues, he likes to pick up on and then pick on yours. Unwelcome at any time of day, not just at ass-o’clock in the morning. 

“Keep Daddy happy and dress up all ladylike,” he prods even further. The last word alone has you gritting your teeth. He knows exactly where to hit.

You finally sit up. “Okay. I get it. Fuck off.”

Danger flares in Patrick’s blown-out pupils. It makes you recoil. He rarely gets real dark on you, but you know all too well how far down he can spiral for no discernible reason. _Just wasn’t expecting to deal with it right now,_ you think, so soon after waking from a rather pleasant dream about swimming in the crystal blue lake.

”You watch your mouth now, Daddy’s girl,” he says. There’s the blank-slate tone of voice you abhor. “It’s ugly when you get all defensive, especially to me. When I know what you are.”

Knowing you’re toeing a perilous line doesn’t quite stop you. “What the hell am I, Hockstetter?”

”A daddy’s girl, I said.” He drums fingertips on the carpet. “Weak, too. Scared of disappointing a man who couldn’t give a real shit about you either way. Spineless. Am I hitting the mark, [Y/N]?”

”Fuck you,” is all you can say. “Fuck you, Patrick, it’s so fucking messed up when you get like this—“

“I don’t _get like_ anything, bitch.” That seems to be something that strikes him a bit harder than all the profanity. “You know exactly what I’m like. Not my fault it gets boring to pretend to care about you.”

_Honestly, where the hell is this coming from?_

He _is_ hitting the mark. Tears sting your eyes and threaten to spill, only making you more angry. You refuse to cry now, not after he just called you weak. You’re close to fourteen, for God’s sake, you ride around in Belch’s Trans Am like you own the town, you’re a hardass. Not violent like the boys can be but a hardass in the energy you exude, and you know it. The soft feelings you harbour for the creature in front of you shouldn’t change that. Neither should anything Daddy has to say or think of you.

”Get the fuck out of my house.” You wait for Patrick to move. No dice. “Patrick, I swear to God. Leave—“

The door creaks open. Panic rises and falls with whiplash-inducing quickness when you realize it’s only Richie, probably come to warn that the argument is getting too loud. He’s missing his glasses. Doing a blind sweep of the room, he comes to settle on Patrick’s vague direction and scowls.

”I can hear you giving her shit through the walls, nasty sadist shitface,” he stage-whispers. “Don’t fucking come around here like you own the place if you’re gonna pull that. And stop using your emotionless horror movie voice to say ‘daddy’, goddamn creep.”

Knowing he can’t see it but afraid to speak in case you do something awful like start to cry, you give Richie a limp thumbs-up. He’s grown some serious balls since realizing that your influence on the Bowers gang will pretty much keep him safe no matter what. They genuinely like you enough to give the Losers a wide berth at your request.

Balls or otherwise, Patrick’s not like the rest of the gang. “Better hope you’ve learned to mind your business by the time I get her calling _me_ Daddy, Four-Eyes.”

”What the fuck?” you and your brother chime in unison.

”She’s thirteen, you disgusting motherfucking pervert asshole,” Richie starts. A drowsy shout from downstairs signalling Mom’s awake stops him cold. “Sorry, Ma, just talking to [Y/N]!”

Patrick doesn’t continue down that line of provocation, so you can assume he didn’t really mean to say it. One of his few actions made without perfect calculation. He doesn’t show anything resembling his version of remorse (i.e. wanting to change the subject) either. Just that awful blankness.

”Get out,” you repeat, softer now. “You’re being horrible. Go, please.”

With a second of deliberation, he slithers back out the window the way he came. His Corn Pops remain abandoned in their milky morgue. 

Richie deadpans from the doorway, “Good morning to you too.”

All you have to offer is a half-asses snort. Dealing with Patrick on a fine day is sometimes exhausting. Days like today have you second-guessing your involvement with him at all. You two siblings stare at eachother for a brief while as the sound of your mother coming hustling up the stairs grows loud.

”Richard,” she yawns. “[Y/N]. Would it be so hard for the two of you to save your bickering for, say, mid-afternoon? When I’m at work and don’t have to hear it? And why,” she pokes Richie hard in the chest and he stumbles blearily back, “did I hear you call your sister a disgusting... mother-effing pervert a-hole? What is that even about?”

”She just is, Ma.” Richie gives her doe eyes. It’s extra comical because he isn’t even looking straight at her. 

“I really am,” you agree.

”Language,” she scolds. Then she wanders back out of sight. Crisis averted.

Your brother rubs his eyes and gives a serious face to some spot at the left of your head. With how crappy his eyesight is, it’s a wonder he made it the five steps between either bedroom. 

“You’re gonna get hurt.”

”Patrick won’t hurt me.” Not true. He’s much more humanoid nowadays around the gang and you in particular, but things like this remind you that you’re still not safe. That sudden meanness and then the vulgarity — the latter of which had never been directed at you before — make it impossible to ignore his nature, crush down the hope you still carry that Patrick might one day change. He’s too unpredictable to be given the benefit of the doubt. “Just a rough morning, I guess.”

”Listen, idiot, I trust Henry goddamn Bowers with taking care of you against every law of nature, and I gotta admit he’s doin’ fine.” Richie twiddles his thumbs. “And you’re a smart bitch. You’re smart enough to know that nobody with half a brain can use ‘trust’ and ‘Patrick’ in the same sentence.”

”I don’t need to be taken care of.” That’s all you can think to mumble.

Richie screws off back to his own room with a colourful string of curse words. You’ve gone and exasperated him. Of course you know he means he trusts Henry not to get you involved in anything shady, after these successful few years, but you can’t acknowledge the other point your brother makes. Talking about the more-than-slightly toxic energy between Patrick and yourself is and has been off limits. A hard no.

_I can’t wear the sundress today,_ you realize. Though it might cause some friction should you come home at an unfortunate time and cross paths with your father, there’s no way you can wear your preplanned outfit, not without giving Patrick the impression that he’s right about you. If you even see the boy again today. Often he won’t come around for a few days when this sort of thing happens. Not that it happens too often, but... not exactly few and far between.

Is there a happy medium? You’re stood up now and digging through the hangers within your closet. Most of what you own sits on a polar end of the spectrum from tomboyish to laughably feminine, not much of a middle ground. The days of being able to wear ratty shorts and a frilly top and have it be socially acceptable as a child are no more. Derry High in a few months will be unforgiving.

Ding ding, jackpot! There’s that denim skirt sitting primly unworn on the upper closet rack. “Artfully distressed,” is how Mom had named its tiny deliberate rips and frays. A back-to-school buy for the start of eighth grade last August, just barely too big at the time but hopefully fine now. Small curves are starting to take form around your midsection, their arrival nearly as panic-inducing as that of your period in December. 

You wonder absentmindedly while you dress, matching the skirt with a black long-sleeved t-shirt so it looks a little more like you — does having your ‘time of the month’ mean you’re more or less of a lady? It doesn’t matter all that much to you personally. You can’t help but be curious as to what your dad would have to say. Good thing you’re not planning to tell him.

Time slips out of your fingertips over the rest of the morning. Make the bed, finish off Patrick’s soggy cereal and call it breakfast, run all over the house like a madwoman searching for your sneakers. (They’re by the back door.) In the blink of an eye, you’re spitting minty toothpaste residue and you hear the signature honk of the Trans Am come to chariot you to your algebra exam.

Belch has already finished his own tests. He’s just being sweet by escorting everyone to their own last ones, assuming Henry and Vic decide to show up for their final biology lab. You yell a goodbye to your mom on your way out the door. _Let’s get this over with._

The appeal of cutting open one last frog must be too strong — there they are loaded into the car with Belch. Henry sits shotgun, Vic in the back left, the middle and right spots vacant for you and Patrick on a typical day. Whatever. It’s less cramped like this.

Vic eyes you with curious interest. “That’s new,” he notes, the only one of the boys with the care to notice. “You look all... different.”

Though the comment is voiced to be almost complimentary, you flip him the bird on impulse. If your boys start to go soft on you, the Sun may as well start to rise in the west.

”Patrick coming?” Belch asks. You start to tell him no.

In an uncharacteristic move that gets you mystified, the boy himself appears from his house at that precise second. He’s almost hurrying towards the car. For what friggin’ reason, you can’t imagine. He doesn’t even have a test to take.

When he approaches you and the gang, you’re still hovering with your hand on the back door handle, confused into stillness. Out of whack as Patrick may be acting right now, it doesn’t stop him from snapping “Move your ass,” as he brushes past you to hoist himself into the right seat, no door required. 

“Now I have to crawl over you,” you point out. That’s met with silence. Vic shrugs minutely, telling you with his eyes to just let it go.

Fine, then.

Belch drops Henry and Vic off at the high school first, then you, right on time. You’re not sure what he and Patrick plan to get up to by themselves. _Maybe they’ll roam around the woods and Patrick can do some therapeutic bug-killing to get out of this funk._ Hope so.

⚘⚘⚘

The exam itself goes off without a hitch despite not being the most important thing to occupy your mind at present. You meet up with Richie so the two of you can walk home and drop off your things before heading out with respective friends, like usual. There’s an upsetting dark cloud between you two. No doubt it’s a result of the disagreement in the morning.

You hate to make him upset; at the same time, it’s not like you’re gonna ditch your whole group of friends just because everyone’s favourite psychopath is having a rough day. As if you could make many other friends. Everyone at Derry Middle leaves you be. They pay you respect for being part of an older and rather dangerous crew while avoiding any personal trouble. If you didn’t have your boys, though, that respect would evaporate. It’d all go back to how it used to be. Back to being an unremarkable girl born on the wrong side of town.

Getting back home, you start off with the intent to change clothes. You’re all meeting up in Henry’s backyard for the traditional school’s-out bonfire. _Or I could stay like this,_ you reconsider, settled in front of the bathroom mirror. The shirt’s untucked now and adds a certain level of dishevelment to your look that gives it more personality. _Ladylike?_ you wonder again, almost mockingly. _God, I hate that shit. I’m still a girl in jeans as much as I am in a dress._ It’s fine. Doesn’t matter.

Your gaze comes to rest with unexpected interest on the cluttered makeup kit left on the counter by Mom. _This must be some funny part of growing up,_ you decide, reaching for a tube of mascara almost by accident. Might also be some funny part of how your heart had fluttered in its cavity this morning. It could’ve easily been wishful thinking, but you’d seen Patrick look at you in an unfamiliar way during the seconds spent of him walking towards the car. Like he’d been noticing something different.

The memory of being ten years old hidden beneath your duvet and thinking of how you’d like for Patrick Hockstetter to be your first kiss plays itself over in your brain.

Cody Collins had taken that first kiss awhile back at one of the precious few classmate birthday parties you’d been invited to. It was sloppy and brief. More times than you ever plan to admit, you’ve thought again of kissing Patrick. He’d probably be sloppy too. Not from lack of experience, just because of who and how he is. 

“That’s enough,” you reprimand your unruly thoughts aloud.

The mascara wand appears to have made it into your hand without your knowledge. Taking a levelling breath, you lean into the mirror and mimic what you’ve seen Mom do with the tool.

_Pretty,_ you realize, pulling back from the glass with a final flourish of the brush. As pretty as half-through-puberty tends to get, at least.

”You look like a baby hooker,” Richie announces a few minutes later. You’re passing by his perch on the living room couch. Now you’ve got the addition of tinted cherry Chapstick, having hoped that it wouldn’t be enough makeup to be noticed as you sped past the common area. Really, it’s not a lot at all, but those magnifying-glass spectacles could probably pick up on a newly grown eyelash if Richie set his mind to it.

Your father lifts his head from the day’s newspaper at that comment. _Shit_. He leans back in his recliner and analyzes you, with you shooting daggers from your eyes at Richie all the while.

”Very pretty, sweet girl,” he says finally. A real smile creases his cheeks. In spite of your distaste, you find yourself preening at the praise, same as every other day. “Going to spend the evening with your girlfriends?”

Richie’s clearly in the kind of typical Trashmouth mood that renders him unaware of any consequence impending on himself or others. You blurt out in a desperate attempt to cut him off before he gives away who you’re really going to spend time with. _Not now, Richie, not after I’ve kept it to myself no problem for three years, no sir_. 

“Going out with my friends, alright!” Yeah, okay. Real smooth.

Daddy lifts an eyebrow. You hold strong and offer a winning smile.

”Sounds good,” he allows.

Mentally, you pump an excited fist. Another crisis averted. Surely it helps that you do in fact look like you’re going to hang out with other girls, unlike literally every other time you’ve left the house since that fateful summer.

When he’s returned to his paper, you get back on your merry way out the door, sure to flip Richie off at the same time. He accepts it with grace.

⚘⚘⚘

”You’re fucking joking. You gotta be.”

Vic stares at you, eyes boggling out of their sockets. You shake your head. 

“You did _not_. You didn’t sneak into the high school just put a jar of roaches in Greta’s pencilcase.”

“I did,” you correct. “On the first day of exams this week for her to open when she went to grab a number two pencil. Like a have-a-nice-summer gift.” It’s unusual for you to do any shit-disturbing of your own, so this is a hot topic.

”Bugs in pencilcases?” Belch gives an exaggerated wince. “Gonna hafta start calling you [Y/N] Hockstetter sooner or later.”

The whole lot of you laughs around the bonfire, though everyone checks their peripheral vision to see if Patrick’s laughing out of his standard obligatory humour or with murderous intent at being semi-made fun of. It actually looks like neither. It’s a distracted hollow laugh like his mind is on some much more important thing.

Henry stretches out and sips on his beer. You declined one of your own, probably for the last year. “I think we did damn good, this year, boys,” he says. “Boys and [Y/N]. Stuck some heads in some toilets, stole some cigs, never got more than two detentions in a month. Damn good.”

A ripple of agreement resounds. Again, Patrick’s heart (or whatever passes for a heart within him) doesn’t appear to be in it.

Belch suddenly hiccups around a laugh, beer can crinkling in his meaty fist. “Don’t forget all the rest of the ways we done good, Bowers.” He makes an obscene gesture with his free hand.

_The fuck?_

”The fuck?” You echo your own thoughts. “What are you even saying?”

”Nothin’ really,” Vic tries.

Of course this turn of conversation makes Patrick more engaged. He interrupts and crushes Vic’s attempts at nonchalance. “He means we all got action and plenty of it, princess, but I guess nobody ever told _you_ that.” 

The pet name usually comes only from Henry’s mouth as his way of endearment. Off Patrick’s tongue it just sounds so demeaning you could be sick.

”Cuz she doesn’t need to know,” mumbles Belch. His eyes are downcast now. Probably regretting having said anything.

”Oh, she can handle herself. Yeah?” That last word is directed toward you alone. You find yourself nodding on instinct.

They all stay mute for a time. You use the moment to process, or try to — the boys have been doing boy things. That’s all it comes down to. Not shocking. Just weird because they’ve never kept anything from you on purpose until now. It has to be because you’re younger, or a girl. Both? _I hate it either way_.

When another solid minute goes by, Patrick pipes up again, the closest to glee you’ve seen him since the time Belch hit a baby deer with the car. “What, you thought we’d let you in on it when it happened? You think those little ears are ready to hear about the bitches we get off with, or did you think we’d never do it at all? Like you’ve got some kinda girly claim on us? Is that what you think?”

“No,” you whisper. He’s prodding at the shame embedded in your core for the second time today. This time it just hurts more than frustrates. “I– I get it. Just don’t like to feel left out, ‘s’all.”

Vic starts again. “Aw shit, [Y/N].” His hand reaches for your knee to pat it prior to Patrick cutting him off for a second time.

”Oh, you’ll stop feeling so left out one of these months. Don’t get your panties in a twist before I do it for you.” The entire statement is delivered so matter-of-factly that its tone is comforting, lulls you back into a sense of security, until _hey! What? What?_

”What?”

“Hockstetter.” Henry stands up from his lawnchair. “Shut it.”

Patrick sneers up at him. Aside from yourself that first day in the clearing, he’s still the only person you’ve seen resist crumbling to Henry’s intimidation. 

“Like you haven’t thought of it. Like it wasn’t on your mind as soon as she showed up looking like that.”

”Stop it,” you say.

Panic is starting to infect you. If they mean what you think they must mean — and there’s not much else they _could_ mean, context noted — you’re in a patch of trouble. Most especially concerning Patrick. Head-over-heels in puppy love for him you may be, but you aren’t a fool. How many times when you’d still gone to the same school had you watched him suck face with some ever-changing girl in the hallways (_and then apparently doing whatever else with them behind closed doors,_ your brain fills in rather rudely) before moving onto the next? Sometimes within the hour? 

Older people in town have whispered when the group of you has passed by once or twice, commenting on the peril a little thing like you must be in, only ever hanging around boys with such reputations. They don’t know the half of it.

Patrick gets infatuated, maybe what he’s doing now. Between his unusual jab at Richie about you and what he’s doing now, it fits the bill.

He and Henry keep right on arguing. “Doesn’t matter what I was thinking of, ‘cause I’m about nasty as hell but I ain’t never gonna put that on the kid unless she starts acting like she wants me to, you see? Christ, Patrick, you’re a scumbag.”

Ever calm, Patrick spreads his hands out. Henry’s circled the firepit to hover above him now, to no effect. “I’m just saying,” he says. “Look at that girl and the way she decided to dress up today and tell me she isn’t acting like she wants something. Tell me—“ directed at you again now “—tell me you didn’t wake up all cocky this morning cuz you realized you’re catching up to us, growing up. Got sex appeal.”

You’re swallowing confused, ashamed tears. Belch makes a sound of disgust at the unfolding of the conversation. 

“I didn’t.... Patrick, I don’t know what I did wrong, I’m sorry....”

”I’m gonna walk her home.” Vic stands abruptly and drags you up by the arm with him. 

“I don’t know what I did,” you repeat, stumbling along with Vic a few steps from the circle. 

_Except that you do_, taunts that little voice. _Didn’t you keep your shirt untidy because the covers of those tabloid magazines in the supermarket checkout lines say that messy is sexy? Didn’t you smack that Chapstick on in three layers hoping it’d catch someone’s eye? Someone in specific?_

_Yeah. _The shame swells in your chest.

The speedy turn of events still has you reeling, so it takes a moment to register when footsteps brush through the grass behind you and Vic is pulled off from holding onto you. Patrick’s cold voice replaces his warm presence.

”I think I can get her there safe and sound.”

He leaves no room for argument. Then it’s his clammy hand wrapping round your wrist. You whip your head wildly about to meet Vic’s eyes, which are apologetic if not anxious. It’s all happened so fast, can’t have been more than ten minutes since you’d set up to brag about your cockroach prank. The moon sits high in the sky. You’d have been on the way home soon either way, but to be escorted amid something like this, and now for it to be Patrick instead of (safe, comfortable) Vic is just dismaying.

But you start to walk with him regardless. That’s the only thing to do.

“Stay gone for awhile, Hockstetter, why don’t ya,” Henry almost growls behind you. “Just get gone and stay that way.”

Three quarters of the walk home are spent in dead silence. Never once does Patrick release his vicelike grip to your wrist. Tears come with no sound, coursing down your cheeks, making clean tracks in the filmy layer of bonfire ash settled there. 

“I hate it when you cry like this,” he says. The streetlight between your two homes comes into view.

”Then don’t make me cry,” you manage to choke around a sob. The ‘like this’ is weird and cryptic and you don’t have the energy to address it.

Wrong thing to say. Although the firm fingers let you go where they'd just been holding tight, Patrick’s other hand comes up to your chin and he darts in front of you in a split second. You quit walking. He’s in the way.

All up in your face, turning your head to look him dead in the eye from an inch away, Patrick gives a hearty little chuckle when you start to shake. How could you only yesterday have had yourself fooled into believing you were at least an occasional exception to his insane behaviour?

_No such thing as an exception, not me, not for him._

“I’ll break you like a cheap vase one of these days,” he tells you in that eerie tone. In the next heartbeat, he leans down to kiss you so hard it hurts.

”Ptrrr-ck,” you try to say. It’s muffled between two sets of lips and teeth. He’s got the same hand grasping your chin to keep your head straight, the other hand having started on your waist and now creeping steadily up to where your chest has begun to swell in recent months. It feels violent. Gritty. Not what you’ve wanted from him all these years. Exactly what your inner realist expected.

Wrong. It feels so wrong. _I have to make it stop_ flashes through your head. _Not like this, not like this_. His roaming hand starts to pinch and squeeze painfully. _Not like this_.

The next instant his lip presents itself to your mouth at an opportune angle, you bite down on it until the skin breaks and fills your gumline with hot blood. 

“Motherfucker.” He pulls back. It’s that that makes you rip away and bolt for your house. He pulls back, looking inconvenienced at best and at worst like he’d enjoy it if you’d do it again. Oh, you fucking run.

Patrick doesn’t follow, though you don’t dare check until you’re safely in your coatroom with the door latched right. He stares in your direction for some time. Certainly you aren’t imagining the placement of his hand over the front of his pants, but you’d like to pretend that you are.

Eventually he turns and walks back towards Henry’s, but angled such that he must be heading for the forest around where Richie goes to hang around. In a flurry, you look all around until your eyes settle on your brother’s sneakers, meaning he’s home safe. You can’t even think of what Patrick would do if he came across the Losers in whatever freakish state he’s in.

_Tear off some squirrel tails to blow off some steam,_ you think after him, and start to cry again.

⚘⚘⚘

The following morning brings with it a crippling sense of guilt. _I wrecked it_ is the thought you awaken with. _They’re my only friends and I just had to go and wreck it_.

You don’t seek out either Patrick alone or the group that day. Honestly, all you want to do is forget about the thing that happened in the street. The raw feeling of your lips and tender spot where he’d gripped your jaw simply won’t allow for it. The worst part? Scummy as it makes you feel, and as disoriented and scared as you’d been in the moment, the stupid kiss refuses to quit replaying almost giddily in your mind.

Those first few days of avoiding your friends melt away into weeks. July brings sweltering heat and crippling loneliness. All you have to keep you occupied is a few summer reading projects. This, you note, is the problem with putting all your eggs into one basket, so to speak. They all tend to shatter at once.

⚘⚘⚘

”You're being pathetic,” Richie informs you. It’s been close to a month of this. “Like, I get it, I wouldn’t wanna leave my house either if my face looked like yours, but Jee-zus.”

He has no idea of what happened with Patrick or how you’re certain it was indeed your face (or your looks in general) that’d caused the entire shitshow; the former would make him furious and the latter is too distressing for you to even want to think of it.

”Your face _does_ look like mine.” You offer a shrug. “I’m okay, Richie. But ya know. If there’s room in your gang of Losers, you could let me come along one of these days?”

Propositioning that is a halfhearted idea at best. You expect him to poke some fun at you, drop the subject, if you’re real lucky let you tag along just for the weekend. _Your brother’s friends are your brother’s friends_, Mom had explained back in fifth grade. Initially you’d tried to keep up with the bunch of them, but Richie had grown past wanting you stuck to his side by that time. Still, he’s never once protested you chatting up Bev or asking Mike about the new baby sheep when they all come around.

However, everything in this town seems to be growing more poisonous lately. It doesn’t stop with Patrick.

“Fuck no.” Richie looks legitimately horrified. “Stay away, [Y/N]. If you know what’s good for you.”

_Is that a threat?_

Nothing Richie has ever said to you, no digs at your looks or your behaviour, has ever hurt so bad. This is a blatant display that he doesn’t want you around. Going so far as to top it off with a threat.

”Is everyone going fucking crazy or is it just me?” You throw your hands up into the air in defeat. Turning tail and stomping out of the living room, you head to the doorway, hoping that the tears will stay back until you’ve tied your shoes and slammed the door behind you for good measure.

“Not what I meant that to sound like,” he calls from the couch. Can’t be bothered to come say it to your face. When you don’t answer, a long-suffering sigh reaches your ears. “Goddammit. Be careful outside.”

”Like you give a rat’s ass,” you shoot back.

_Yup_, you confirm when the sun hits your face. _Still hotter than hell and twice as stuffy_. Rainclouds have been circling Derry like they’re playing coy, raising the humidity almost unbearably but never caring to deliver on their promises.

The little beater car that often occupies the Hockstetter roadside is gone, has been the last few times you’ve stuck your head out (never for very long when you’ve got nowhere to go and nobody to see). Maybe they’re on a trip somewhere? Unlikely, given the tumultuous relationship between all three of them, but hey. Sure seems like all bets are off for the summer.

A barely detectable breeze kicks up, offering some minor relief and planting the thought of a bike ride with the air blowing past you. It’s not like you’ve got anything better to do. Those summer reading books didn’t last long.

Your bike is around the side of the house, lying on its side beneath the tree Patrick uses (used?) to invade your bedroom. Since you’ve been taking advantage of Belch and his driving ability, the thing has seen better days, requiring you brush off cobwebs and dust from the seat and spokes. It’ll work if you need it to.

⚘⚘⚘

You get lost in thought throughout the ride, only knowing that you’re headed downtown to find anything to do. Window shop or duck into the library. Something to occupy any precious bit of time.

More ‘Missing’ posters are nailed up the deeper into town you go, too many to count by a long shot, almost none displaying the same kid twice. One in your peripheral vision strikes a familiar chord in such a way that your stomach seizes and your mouth goes sour. By the time you whip your head around to look, though, you’ve ridden well past it. 

_My imagination,_ you decide. _Lord knows I’ve developed a hell of one, being on my own all this time. It’s fine. All my friends are older. If I even still have any friends. Kidnappers like actual kids, right?_

The humidity is suffocating.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go this is where shit starts to go sicko mode kids . still like 13 almost 14 but that’ll move along soon and so will SOME OTHER THINGS......... 
> 
> this one requires u remember that pennywise & maturin (the turtle ya kno) have pretty heavy influence on all of derry, which in this chapter includes sorta giving reader a sixth sense of sorts. won’t spoil it just wanna remind y’all that this is based on a stephen king universe so it requires a lil bit of suspension of disbelief.
> 
> also! i write all my shit on paper then type it up on my phone, which is a nice replacement for beta reading in that i can look everhthing over and be like ‘ah that plot point is stupid i’ll add a sentence here to change it’ BUT it ends up causing some typos n shit! so if something doesn’t make sense or looks like it should be a different word/letter pls point it out in comments! am always a slut for constructive criticism
> 
> ok have fun

In the wake of what you come to think of as ‘the breakup’, things start to get weirder.

You start to spend more time out on your own, checking books out of the library, buying slushies with the pocket money you’d saved throughout the times Vic would pay your way in whatever the group was doing. That by-yourself part isn’t so unbearable; your first year at Derry Middle was pretty solitary. It’s everything else.

The missing kids double in numbers and then triple from there. It doesn’t stop you from going out, largely because Mom and Daddy don’t seem to care one way or another. The way they’ve been acting, ignorant being the closest descriptor, it’s a miracle if they even notice you leaving. Richie, on the other hand, breathes down your neck with increasing severity. He’s on you like flies to a corpse. Once or twice he goes so far as to track you down in town when he’s decided you won’t make it home within the curfew.

You aren't running around with a death wish, you hope he knows. The woods and the river don’t seem like smart places to be alone so you stick to the busy spots downtown and your own street. Not wandering like some of those kids. Plenty of them have disappeared closer to the Barrens or on the quiet roads in the nicer part of town. On that note, it’s really Richie and his friends who should be taking care, but he acts like he knows something you don’t.

The days pass by sticky-slow like molasses pours. Belated though it may be, you start itching to prove (though you’re unsure to who) that you _didn’t_ mean for the night of the bonfire to go so awry, didn’t leave your house ‘wanting something’. The little touches of makeup become part of your morning routine; they become casual as do the less tomboyish clothes. Mom finally does find a way to pick up more hours at the pharmacy and uses that money to take you shopping for both of those. It’s the only day you can think of out of the entire season that she doesn’t act vacant.

Mid-August sees the overall wrongness coming to a head.

You’re sat comfortably on the bench across from that huge statue of some lumberjack guy, slurping on a cherry slushy and people-watching. It’s overcast perfectly. Light clouds block the sun just enough to soften its beating heat without diminishing all of the warmth. Your slushy isn’t melting too fast.

It must just be pure instinct since you’d never paid much attention to what the engine had sounded like — a car revs in the street behind you and muscle memory kicks in before your brain gets the chance to catch up. You stand, turn, make eye contact with Belch ten yards away within the Trans Am.

_How have I never seen them driving around?_ you wonder, interestingly for the first time. You’d sort of accepted that they wouldn’t want to see you, so you wouldn’t be seeing them.

Here they are, though, idling, apparently waiting for you. Not really _they_. You take a few inquisitive steps in the car’s direction to notice that the top is up and backseats are empty. Only Belch and Vic fill the front two, both staring with expressions that are rendered unreadable by the distance, so you get close. The passenger window rolls down.

”Vic?” You hover on the curb.

”You should get in,” he says. “We get it if you don’t wanna. But you should.”

_Nice. Very cryptic_.

You crawl into the back, settling in the middle seat by sheer force of habit. 

The voice that leaves your mouth when you find words to speak doesn’t sound like your own. It’s small and high like a hurt animal. Richie’s referral to you as a lost puppy following Patrick around pops into your head. Patrick isn’t here now, though.

”Hi, guys,” you say. “Um. I missed you.”

_Why the hell am I saying that? Doesn’t matter if I missed them, God, they’re not a bunch of saps, if Henry were here he’d probably make me get out and walk home just for acting all soft—_

“Missed you too,” Vic allows. It’s short and gruff. He means it, though, you can tell. “Shit, there’s a lot you don’t know. A lot.”

”Anything to do with where Henry’s at?” _Or Patrick_ almost comes next. You bite your tongue. 

Belch puts the car back in gear to pull onto the main road. “You wanna tell her, Criss?”

”Don’t wanna, but I will. [Y/N], we’re goin’ by Bowers’ to see him right now, but his old man’s had him under lock and key after the bonfire night, you know, after Hockstetter’s mom came knocking to tell Butch he’d be responsible if they found out anything had happened to Patrick on that property, cuz I guess she’s always thought Henry’s too much of a hothead, like Patrick’s a real gentle giant—“

”Too fast,” you interrupt. “Way too fast. What do you mean, under lock and key? Since when does Henry care if he’s grounded?”

”No, he means lock ‘n’ key like the dude could barely move all month,” Belch says. “Butch beat the living shit outta him for this one. Didn’t break bones, but when we stopped to visit him the next time old man was out, he was all swollen up like a balloon. Bruised and sprained so bad he screamed when he tried to roll over to say hey.”

”For what?”

Something you half-heard in Vic’s rant isn’t sitting right. It triggers some kind of visceral raw fear.

”You said... about Patrick. What’d you mean?”

They're both waiting for the other shoe to drop, it would appear, like you’re supposed to know the answer. Maybe you do. The missing poster that had grabbed your attention on your first day out alone, going on three weeks back now. The one you’d disregarded because kidnappers take kids. Only that hasn’t shown true now, has it? Hell, this week’s biggest poster on the library billboard is of a seventeen-year-old.

”No,” you say.

Belch runs a stop sign.

”No, you guys.” _This has to be a joke, right? They have to be screwing with me. We’re gonna get out at Henry’s place and Patrick will pop out of the trunk like the wackjob he is and Henry isn’t even hurt at all, why would he be, if Patrick’s fine?_

“Patrick didn’t come home after he took you back from the bonfire,” Vic says. He’s turned around to look you in the eye as if he’s telling a child their pet’s been run over. “He hasn’t been seen around since then. Not by anyone. They found a scrap of the shirt he had on—“

”That god-awful yellow cartoon one,” Belch adds. Vic smacks him on the shoulder before continuing.

“They found the scrap... well, it was by that fridge he used. You know ‘bout all that?” You nod. “Yeah. There. So I guess we know what he was up to when the freak took him.”

_Couldn’t prove it._ Of course your thoughts go directly to how to get Patrick out of shit. _If he shows up again and the cops wanna take him in because of the fridge, it wouldn’t work. For all anyone knows it belongs to the guy who’s doing all the kidnapping_. But how many kids have just shown up again? And after this long?

You're not sure when you started to cry.

”Shit,” says Belch. “Aw, shit, do you want me to pull over?”

”She’s not puking, dipshit.” Vic makes a what-the-fuck hand motion. “Bowers’ place is two minutes away, can you just man up?”

The remainder of the ride is quiet outside of your own sniffles. You miss him. You have this whole time, against all reason, and now you’re never gonna see him again.

Worst is how stupid you feel. As if you have any business feeling Patrick’s absence so heavily, as if he’d miss you if the circumstances were flipped. Almost deliberately to upset yourself more, you imagine what he was thinking when he was taken. Not _oh shit, I’m gonna die, sucks that I was really shitty to the one person who has my back!_ Probably closer to _uh, excuse me, kidnapper, I’m trying to torture animals right now, so if you could come back later that’d be fantastic_.

What finally snaps you out of this weird mashup mourning/pity party is the sight that greets you when the Trans Am rolls to a stop across the street from Henry’s house. Butch’s truck is nowhere to be seen. That must be deliberate on the gang’s part. One of the lawnchairs usually set up by the firepit is instead on the front porch, occupied by Henry, who slouches and blows a puff of smoke. Even from this distance, the sleeveless shirt he dons has an obscene amount of yellowing bruises on display, and Belch hadn’t been lying about the swollenness stretching his skin.

”Holy shit,” you say. Vic gives a grim nod.

The bunch of you crawl out of the car and make your way over. You can’t help but run the last dozen steps.

“Henry,” you gasp. He looks worse up close. It must pain the scabbed-over split at the corner of his mouth, but he gives you half of a smile.

”Miss me, princess?”

”Fuck off,” you manage before you start to cry all over again. This seems to scare him more than it did Belch.

He clears his throat a few times. When that doesn’t make you stop, he says gruffly, “I didn’t like not havin’ you around either, but I’m gonna change my mind if you don’t stop that shit.”

At least he’s still the same old Henry.

You do the best you can to swallow the crushing sadness, wiping your streaming cheeks and — for good measure — hock up a chunk of snot and spit it onto the lawn. That makes everybody relax.

”So you heard Hockstetter’s old crow of a mother got my shit rocked,” he says. “‘D’you even know he was gone?”

You shake your head. Vic goes to sit down on the front steps and beckons you to follow. “No. Thought I saw a poster for him one time, but I figured I’d been seeing things. Didn’t think it made sense for a creep after children to go for someone like Patrick.”

”I thought the same.” Vic makes a face. “Bet the guy regretted it real soon.”

Belch snorts. “Hey, maybe Patrick offered to help him out. Team effort.”

Your face must reveal how close you are to breaking down again. The other two state stonefaced at him. He winces.

Henry makes a point to create a new line of conversation. He fills you in on what’s been going on, delving further into detail than the condensed version you’d been told on the drive over here. Mrs. Hockstetter had shown up in the week following the disappearance. She’d attacked Butch’s parenting for having been unaware of the group hanging out in his yard, blamed him for Patrick’s failure to return home, and insisted that she’d be demanding a police search of the land. That hadn’t been necessary. Only the next day the scrap of Patrick’s shirt was recovered, rendering searches elsewhere to be pointless.

Either way, that hadn’t helped Henry. You listen with apt attention to him describe the beating, mentioning he’d been convinced that he would die if he couldn’t manage to stop from passing out.

”Old man’s been bringing me painkillers lately from fuck knows where,” he concludes. “Guess that’s what he calls guilt. Like it changes that he kicked me in the ass so hard I thought I’d puke up my spine.”

You reach out to pat his hand. It’s an old act of muscle memory, dated back to when your own father used to backhand Richie across the mouth for talking back, ages before the two of them grew so chummy. Henry is very much not Richie. He snatches his arm away, though the action seems more flustered than agitated.

The rundown goes on for another several minutes. Now that the important piece has been said, it’s just the other two boys talking about how they’ve been passing the time. Vic has been helping his mom out while some family visits from Portland — “Not, like, cooking or any girly shit,” he insists, “just helping out, y’all get it.” Belch has been working on the car with his dad. You’ve just spent the summer by your lonesome. With Henry getting back into commission now, that’ll change, which is where the discussion ends up leading to.

Once each of you has said your piece, something seems to be hanging in the air. The three boys look amongst themselves in that nonverbal communication system you’ve yet to break into. They appear to agree that it’s Henry’s turn to talk again.

”Boys came to visit yesterday and we figured out we had better plan something,” he says.

Your brow furrows. “Plan what?”

Glance back and forth again. Vic’s turn.

”We wanna go look for Patrick.” Now they all turn their sights on you with overbearing intensity. “I mean, the idea came up cuz we thought _you’d_ be the one to suggest it today. Gotta be ahead of the game with you, Tozier.”

”Hockstetter deserves this shit if anyone does,” Belch contributes, quick to add on when he catches the look in your eye. “Still. He’s one of ours. We better at least try, I guess.”

It strikes you that they are all remembering the nastiness Patrick had displayed towards you that night. Probably guessing at what happened on the walk home. And yet they must know it didn’t completely crush your adoration for him, or else they wouldn’t be suggesting this. You feel low, pathetic in an instant, but that’s not the point. Not for now.

“So, like, what is it we’re supposed to do? They already found that scrap. It’s not like we’ll find a damn thing more than the cops did.”

”Not there, we won’t,” Vic agrees. “But I got an idea. From your brother, actually, [Y/N]. Tried to scare him and his buddies off my street a couple days back.”

You make an attempt to protest. Richie is still off limits, jerkish behaviour aside. Vic waves a dismissive hand.

”They were being creepy by my gutter, dude, shut up. Anyway, the stuttery one said something ‘bout the sewers being where the bad things are at, and it got me thinking he could be onto something.”

Head cocked to the side, you ask “What the hell does that have to do with Patrick?”

Vic looks to Henry, presumably for permission, and is nodded along. “You know how Bowers isn’t as much of a hothead idiot as he pretends to be.”

”Yes.”

Henry scowls.

”I remembered the presentation he did in middle school ‘bout the sewers in Derry, real detailed, nice job, man–“ Vic narrowly avoids Henry’s boot flying at his head “–and the thing is, it’s wack. The gutters all go to this big underground tube city, basically, big enough to walk around in, and, like, what better place to do a bunch of gross shit? Nobody goes in there. Ain’t even a cleaning crew.”

”You think that’s where the kids end up.” You're not asking so much as confirming.

Henry shrugs. “Sounds like a stretch to me. It ain’t gonna hurt to have a look-see either way.”

”Well.” You teeter back and forth, miming deep thought. “We could literally get killed, but go off, I guess.”

He gives you the stink eye. “You were in that position every time you let Hockstetter hang around you alone.”

”He wouldn’t....” You get started on the default defense. Then you think of that kiss, harsh and heartless, only stopping when you forced it to by running. “Point taken.”

”So.” Belch is the one to finish off. “We bring some baseball bats ‘n’ shit, go down there tonight to that big opening. See if we come by somethin’.” 

_He means the Barrens,_ you realize. _Would be real nice if the adults in town cared all that much about this crazy shit, cuz I’m sure someone should’ve pointed the sewer thing out by now._ Just another one of those incomprehensible things, a puzzle piece that fits nowhere. Add it to the pile of every other bizarre happening of the summer. It’s as if something is making them turn a blind eye. Ridiculous, sure, but what other explanation exists for a town losing a hundred of its kids and never managing to even bring in a suspect?

You stand up and begin to pace in front of the patio. There’s no fear of getting caught tonight; that piece is as simple as arranging blankets to look vaguely human in your bed and leaving via the window-tree route.

That’s the problem. It’s too easy. If you do get hurt — taken, more likely, and then hurt — will your parents even mind? The answer today is so different from what it would’ve been months ago. Everything has felt wrong since the day school ended, the bonfire. Life’s become some sort of psychological horror movie. Getting under your skin and festering in the dark corners of your brain.

”We got your back, kid,” Henry tells you.

You quit walking. Each of you is quiet, thinking of the night ahead.

”I’m scared,” you say.

It isn’t met with any exasperation; no sighs, no quips about girls not being cut out for gangs. Instead the boys hum and nod. 

“Me too.” Vic looks thoughtful. “I think Patrick was probably scared. As close to scared as he’s ever got, at least. And if he managed not to be at first, he’s gotta be by now.”

No, he can’t have been scared to begin with, you’re positive of that much. _Now, though? If there is a ‘now’ for him? Could he still be that same impermeable blank slate seven weeks into being abducted? _If anyone could, it’d be him, but you can’t know. Only wonder for now.

“Nine tonight sound fine?” Belch meets everyone’s eyes one by one. “I can leave the car runnin’ when we’re looking around too. Easy out.”

”It’s a date,” Vic tries to joke.

You start out with the intent to groan, but somewhere along the way you laugh instead. And keep right on laughing. Maybe it’s kind of hysterical at first, but how can you be blamed for that? The boys look bewildered for a few beats, but they join in not long after. Life is so fucking ridiculous, why not. 

⚘⚘⚘

An owl hoots. It sounds too close, too loud. You shiver.

Eight-fifty. The television downstairs shuts off, signalling your parents heading to bed. Dinner around the Tozier table had been near dead silent. _A real lovely sendoff it’ll have been if I get murdered in twenty minutes,_ you think with no shortage of bitterness. Even Richie hadn’t had the decency to be engaged. His distracted behaviour has reached a head. _Does that have anything to do with whatever Bill Denbrough tried to tell Vic about the sewers?_

Now there’s a new idea. Striking. Could Richie be thinking the same thing as Vic about all the kids being in the tunnels? He and his friends would have a better idea of it than yours for sure. They've practically lived by the Barrens for close to five years. Of course it’s less of a playground now that they’re older, but it’s served its purpose as a meetup spot just fine nowadays as ever.

You’re deep in thought. Considering asking your brother about all this, perhaps tomorrow if you make it back. Then the bedroom door swings inward. Think of the devil, here Richie comes.

He shuts it behind himself and the two of you stare at eachother. It feels like it lasts an eternity. You’re sat on the inner windowsill at the opposite end of the room, the best view for when Belch pulls up outside.

”Hey,” Richie says.

”Hi.”

”I need.” He pauses. Regroups. “I wanna ask you something. Do something. For me.”

”Okay.” You’re not following.

Richie comes closer. The shine in his eyes is different from its usual humorous mirth — it’s fear. “Can you think about when we were kids and we did everything together, those good times?”

”Richie, I think about that all the time.”

That doesn’t seem to comfort him. In fact, you think he’s tearing up, but it’s too hard to tell in the light of your shitty bedside lamp. “I love you, little sis. I wanna make sure you get that. Do you?”

Alright, this is getting unnerving. “Richie?”

Now, though, he’s noticed your positioning, and without meaning to you glance out the window to check for the Trans Am. He’s always been far too good at reading you.

”You're not leaving,” he tells you. Closer again. “Hey. [Y/N]. Fucking swear to me you won’t leave the house tonight.” He looks more than scared. The aura about him is somehow primal as if he’s on his way to do something cosmically important.

You sigh and squirm. “Listen—“

_”No.”_ He lunges forward to close the last bit of distance and you almost scream. Behind those wild eyes is a much more raw version of the brother you love. All of a sudden you’re just as terrified as he looks. “[Y/N], promise me. I swear to God. I _need_ you to stay in the house tonight.”

Maybe you’re chickening out because you’re more scared of going to the sewers than you recognize. Using this as an excuse. Since when do you let Richie boss you around?

_But those eyes._

”Okay.” You're nodding, taken aback to discover that you mean it. “I’ll stay home.”

”Do you swear? Swear it on your life.”

”I... I swear. On my life.”

The tension bleeds out of his shoulders. “Okay. Okay, yeah.”

”Richie,” you ask, “are _you_ leaving?”

He only starts to move backwards towards the door. It scarcely feels fair that you have to be afraid for his wellbeing all night now. 

“Love you,” you say at the same time that he slips back out with a whispered “Stay home.”

In the following few minutes, the streets stay dark. Almost the instant you look over to the clock and watch it tick to nine, headlights appear at the end of the road and grow closer in a hurry.

Staying home, you figure, just means not going out anywhere. It’s not a breach of the promise to go outside and tell Belch you’ll have to reschedule the vigilante run because your big brother’s acting like a paranoid drug addict. The window makes an unpleasant little screech when you slide it up to get out. The tree scrapes your hands on the way down as well, but the grass tickling your bare feet when you touch down is nice enough to make up for it.

The passenger window rolls down as you bound over to the roadside. Only Belch sits inside on his own. 

“I can’t tonight,” you explain. You’re careful not to talk too loud. “Something’s, uh, wrong with my brother. I gotta stay home. We can go tomorrow?”

Belch knows you well enough not to pry. If it’s an issue that deters you from doing whatever the fuck you want, it has to be serious. He nods slowly. 

“Okay,” he agrees. “Same time tomorrow. I’ll stop by ‘n’ tell Vic and Henry.”

Your “I’m sorry” is met with a shrug. Belch must have been getting some cold feet of his own. When you step back and allow him to drive away out of sight, there’s an overwhelming sense of relief. Something is wrong tonight, and whatever it is, Richie’s justified in being so appalled. You know it the same way you’ve known similar things before: things like the strange _something_ that lies (lied?) deep in Patrick’s core, how an unknown force had _made_ you ignore that missing poster, same as something’s been making your parents oblivious. Making every adult oblivious.

You wander back to the side of the house, but the upwards climb looks daunting. _I’ll sit for a minute,_ you decide, and do just that, back up against the outer wall of the house and neck craned up to the starless sky. _Just for a bit. Sit and wait for the stars to make an appearance._

They do not. Richie, however, does.

At first you think you’ve fallen asleep and dreamt it — he was so adamant you stay safe inside, why would he be leaving? But here he is. The front door makes its open-shut clicking sound, footsteps tiptoe to the curb where both your bikes lie on their sides. You watch with mute intrigue from where you’re cloaked in darkness. He never looks your way, but he wouldn’t be able to see you if he happened to. The determination with which he mounts the bike and pushes away, leaving your line of vision before you’ve even fully processed him showing up, is more scary that the conversation you two had only ten minutes prior.

_What is he doing?_ You bury your head between your knees, frustrated. _Why do I feel like I have to stay right here? Like it’s where I’m meant to be. Why is this town so fucking rotten?_

That’s the word. It’s slipped your mind each time you’ve tried to describe the summer’s events within Derry. The place is rotting, plain and simple. Being eaten away at as if by a parasite.

Half an hour or so must pass by before that word quits repeating itself in your head with such urgency. Twice as long before you start to nod off, never moving from the side lawn. It almost feels like you’ve slipped into dreamland before falling wholly asleep. You could swear that the ground below is starting to tremble.

⚘⚘⚘

Light bleeds into the sky when you jolt awake. Not the true morning sun, only a minor shift in the shade of blue that happens in the wee hours during summertime, a change that could just as well be one’s imagination. It can’t be, though. The feeling of having been asleep for a considerable but not full-night’s amount of time might make it two or three o’clock.

Richie’s bike is back.

He isn’t running around the house trying to find you so far as you can hear, so whatever he went off to do either exhausted him or alleviated his panic. Possibly both. The same can only somewhat be said for you.

An inexplicable tugging prods at your chest. You pause to stretch and crack your neck before focusing in on it. Pulling, like there’s a place you need to be.

_Yes_, the sensation seems to say, growing stronger when you acknowledge it. _Go. Go, go, go_.

_Where?_

The Barrens. It’s Richie’s voice that says the words in your mind, if only because he’s the sole person you’ve heard say them aloud, but it isn’t him who’s telling you what to do. It’s that ingrained knowledge back again.

Same as that time when you were younger and thinking of first kisses, you feel out of place and underage. Like this isn’t something you should feel at nearly-fourteen, like these are circumstances (what circumstances exactly, you couldn't say) too intense for someone who couldn’t even grow the balls to tell her brother ‘no’ mere hours ago. 

_But I’m going out now,_ you think and are surprised to find that you are indeed. _Gonna go to the Barrens and do what I gotta do. It’s tomorrow now_.

Well, okay. Sure. Loophole. Richie had only had you promise not to go ‘tonight’.

Smart. You allow yourself a mental pat on the back.

This unearthed sixth sense guides you to the road, steering you away from your bike for unknown reasons. Maybe there’s a fucking patch of quicksand you’d roll into on the way. Lord knows. Grogginess gets you stumbling the first minute or two, but by the time you approach the outer edge of the woods, you’ve moved on to high alert. 

Instinct keeps you walking along the path you can’t even see — not a ray of moonlight cuts through the trees above. Only once do you stumble over an upward-grown root. Bushes rustle at your sides every so often, but nothing ever jumps out or makes any detectable attempt to come at you. Nature seems to have noticed whatever purpose it is you’re travelling with.

_This is crazy,_ you think calmly. _I’m going crazy. As if some higher power is having me do this right now. I’m exhausted or I’m going crazy. That’s all there is to it._

A deafening splash that sounds closer to an ocean wave scares you so badly you’re shocked that you don’t faint. It’s a near thing. You do stumble and fall. The ground is softer here, a sure sign you’re closing in on the Barrens, if the water’s sound wasn’t obvious enough. Though your heart is performing a panicked little gymnastics routine, it seems only right that you have to move towards the source of the noise, so you rise again, this time with your arms outstretched to evaluate the surroundings.

Just trees to start. No more sounds serve as direction. You do your best to shuffle in the direction that you think it came from.

Ten or fifteen minutes pass with no appearance of water or mud underneath your toes — still bare, you only just realize with a cringe. Ew. Then you squeal at the feeling of something that is decidedly neither water nor ground touching your feet. Your foot touching it? Yeah, that. You’re stepping on it. That seems like a problem.

_Fuck no, fuck no, fuck no,_ you chant inwardly. Another tentative sidestep yields the same squishy texture. It makes you recoil beyond belief. There’s a squelching sound from further down, though, like you’re _on_ something that’s on the water. That has to mean you need to keep going. You do.

_Left foot, right foot. Left foot. Right foot_.

_The waterway outside the big sewer tunnel here, if that’s where I’m at, isn’t all that wide. I have to be getting close to the other side anytime now_.

Indeed, the squelching diminishes bit by bit, and you remain viscerally uncomfortable at not having a clue what it is you’re stepping on or what you’re trying to reach. It’d be nice if this whole omniscient instinct deal came with an instruction manual.

You’re idly entertaining that thought, a little yellow brochure pamphlet packed with bold black letters explaining what the fuck you’re doing and why. On one distracted sidestep, you stumble, letting your foot come down harder than it has been before.

”The fuck?”

That is not your voice.

You scream.

The thing under your feet moves and sends you falling over, landing with a thud on what has to be the other side of the waterway, sweet solid ground at last. It would be a relief. It isn’t because you’re busy screaming. That’s a person talking! A human being! You’ve been stepping on _people_, and none of the others moved or spoke, so that means....

Truly, you’re quite surprised you’re managing to continue screaming. Haven’t even taken a breather. _Guinness World Records, here I come._

”Princess?”

That stops you cold.

It’s Henry’s nickname for you but not Henry himself, which slingshots you into the past, back to the bonfire night when Patrick had spat the word at you like venom off his tongue. This time it isn’t said in that same tone, but doesn’t that sound like an offset version of his signature nasally voice?

You scoot further away. Just in case. “P-Patrick?”

A groan, a splash. He breathes heavily, a good indicator of where he is when he moves onto the ground closer to you. The question hangs in the air. Again for good measure you whisper the name.

Silence for another five seconds. Then, “I think so.”

”Patrick,” you repeat. “_Patrick_.”

”That’s my name,” is the next answer, deadpan but only a millimetre away from being humorous, unfamiliar but so very welcome.

Not caring much for the consequences, you rocket forwards to where you estimate him to be. It’s a good shot. Your head hits what feels like his bare chest. He’s thrown a bit backwards with the force of it, which you don’t think is worth removing yourself about. Most interesting: he doesn’t make you.

”Patrick.” It would appear your vocabulary has shrunk. You reach blindly up and feel the face.

High cheekbones, sharp jaw, pouty lips. Undeniable.

You start to cry._ What is that, five times in twelve hours now? Jesus_. 

“Don’t do that.” There it is again; Patrick’s voice and his words, but inexplicably a different tone. He sounds disoriented more than inconvenienced for the present moment. You place a hand on either cheek and rest your forehead on his. 

“Thought you were gone,” you manage in a throaty murmur. “Missed you.”

Once again. This is where Patrick should shove you off and push you around some, call you some choice names. _Pathetic_ pops up a lot in the few situations you’ve had resemblant of this, nearest being the time he jumped out of the Trans Am at thirty miles an hour and snapped his leg, which just about sent you into a fit. This is worse. You’re being blatantly affectionate. He should be tearing you down right now. Reminding you that you’re devoting a real big piece of your heart to him for nothing.

Instead, he says “Yeah.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear 2 god she’s gonna age up soon LMFAO this is so much longer than i thought it would beEeEeEeEe
> 
> have some heavy dialogue & cute tozier sibling luv mwah
> 
> also usual suspension of disbelief. If The Reader Seems Like She Knows More Than A Normal Person Should. Well That Is Just Fine. its midnight im a high school senior im tired y’all i can not be bothered. 
> 
> bon appetit

Patrick doesn’t allow you to be all over him for long. Fortunately, you hadn’t expected that to last more than a few seconds while he got his bearings, so the minute or two before he hoists you up by the waist and drops you flat on your ass on the nearby ground leaves your need for contact satiated. What’s more, he just lets you cry it out, never making a peep.

At this point you’re not sure why you’re still sobbing. He’s here. It’s more out of shock, maybe, though not at the prospect of just having walked over a bridge of possibly dead human beings. (That’ll surely sink in and horrify you later.) It’s that he’s _here_. The overwhelming sense of loss that’s plagued you even since before you consciously knew he was missing is now rendered unnecessary. To be so certain of never seeing him again only to find him this way....

A thought strikes you like a lightning bolt.

”Are you _naked?_”

”What?” Patrick sputters. He squirms beneath your fingertips when you splash an arm out to feel around his bare chest. “Fuckin’– hey! Quit it. I have pants on. You think I’d be sitting on the goddamn rocks?”

Fair point. You retract the hand with reluctance. 

It’s gotta be going on four, four-thirty in the morning now if the sudden appearance of threads of light in the sky is indicative. Down beneath the trees, light isn’t reaching yet, but if you strain your eyes you think you can make out the foggiest shape of him. He looks scrawnier. Not that he’s ever been able to spare weight. Is now a fine time to ask what’s happened, how he’s still alive, anything in that ballpark? 

_I mean, it’s Patrick. He won’t be traumatized. Doesn’t know the meaning of the word, I don’t think_.

You scoot a little closer until his warmth radiates off to you. How he’s so warm right now is pure nonsense. He does run hot-blooded, though, to the point that he’s never had to fake not needing a coat in the winter for badass points like some people. (Henry. Henry and his fucking muscle shirts.) Sure enough, something that feels like crusty denim scrapes your thigh on his side.

”So.” You nudge his leg with your own. “Um, where ya been?”

There’s a thick silence. Nervousness slaps you across the face — _what happens if he doesn’t wanna talk about it and I’ve already made him mad?_

In the next breath, you hear a sound that’s foreign. So much so that you have to do a double take, make sure it’s not some nearby animal choking on a leaf or whatever. 

It isn’t. It’s Patrick, and he’s laughing, not the short cruel huff you’ve heard from him a few times. A deep sound untainted and natural. It seems like it’s never been put to use before, a little croaky, and the state of his throat sounds like he’s been screaming, scratchy. That hardly catches your attention. Bigger things are to be paid attention to. Patrick is laughing.

”Fuck,” he says at last. The laugh cuts off as abruptly as it arrived. Save for his breathlessness, it’s like it was never there. “Tozier, I’ve been living in a pit with a clown for a long-ass time. Only been one place, you know? But you’re asking what’s been happening.” You nod although he can’t see you. “You think you really want to know?”

For that, he waits for verbal confirmation.

”Yeah. Please, for the love of God, now you have to elaborate on the clown.”

Throughout the first ten or so minutes of Patrick’s story, you hold onto the impression that he’s gone certifiably insane to a different extreme than he was before. The leeches in his fridge (had mentioning it made him uncomfortable, or is your imagination playing tricks?) are somehow the least wild thing he’s got to say. Waking up in some kind of underground layer with a shapeshifting figure preparing to feast on his limbs is pretty far-fetched. So’s the alleged decorative pyre of children in said lair, all of them floating and dead.

”Not me, though,” he murmurs. “The fucker took one look at me when I woke up down there and I guess he decided I would be better to play around with than to kill or eat straight away.”

”Eat.” 

“You’ll believe me when the sun comes up. He never said a lot of real words to me, but that first day he kept on talking about cracking into my shell to get the fear out. He said he could feel it but it was trapped too deep, so he’d have to be creative. Kept me stuck to the floor with something like spiderwebs.”

You shudder. Evil clown-faced entity or not, that’s just creepy. Namely in how it mirrors your own ideas and feelings about what lies under Patrick’s exterior. It tells you that you aren’t the only one.

”And I guess ever since, he would come around once in awhile, on days when he hadn’t brought in anyone new to have. Days when he was bored. I think I slept a lot of the time. When he came and woke me up, he would always look different, change to look like something else that he thought might work to make me scared. The leeches again. Those didn’t work past the time in the woods because I’d been more disgusted than scared, and disgusted wasn’t enough anymore. Then he was some type of ocean creature.”

”Why that?”

The strain to remember is clear in his voice. “I think... I had a book when I was small. With pictures of prehistoric fish, that kind of thing, and there was a huge one with its bottom jaw curled down and a shit ton of teeth. I set the book on fire because I didn’t like the look of it.”

_The only logical solution, of course_. “And did it work? He got what he wanted out of you?”

Now the growing light allows you to see the slow shake of his head. “Not much. He attacked me two or three times looking like that before it stopped making me scream. He took awhile to think up the next one, left me there hung up by my arms to one of the cave walls.” He makes a grunt of bafflement. “He must have kept me alive just by wanting to, [Y/N]. I haven’t eaten since I’ve been down there. Felt like the leeches drained all the blood out of me but I’m still here.”

That’s wild and all, but now you’re buzzing to hear what the creature appeared as next. Whether or not this is a retelling of some kind of elaborate hallucination, that would still mean that something managed to break Patrick in his time in the sewers. Morbidly, you have to know what did it. If he can get scared a whole new scope of things opens up. He could _feel_.

“He was Avery,” Patrick says. _Jeez, he just keeps right on hitting me with brand new stuff_. The lilt to his voice is unmistakably pained. “That was my brother. I smothered him in his crib when he was a few weeks old. The guy — the thing, it turned into him, how he would look now if he had lived.”

Your breath catches in your throat. Rumours are one thing. It’s wildly different for him to admit to that out loud. No more now than ever does it threaten to drive you away, but it’s nonetheless jarring to hear spoken with candor. Candor but not flatness. It’s not deniable anymore; it’s faint, but Patrick is speaking with — you actually censor the word in your thoughts, it feels like such a precarious hope — emotion.

”He looked like _me_ and I hated it. I don’t hate. You know that. I just am. I hated him for looking like me, though, because I did what I did so that he could never be real.”

This is not the first time he’s alluded to that notion of being ‘real’. Near as you can tell, it’s some sort of off-the-charts narcissism. What’s being said does make sense in context, you notice. If young Patrick had already decided he was and would continue to be the only sure thing in his own world, a carbon-copy baby brother would have been about the worst possible trigger for bad things along that wavelength. You force yourself not to tear up again at the thought of the baby and him, their ill-fated standoff.

”I don’t hate and I’ve never been scared.” Patrick speaks slowly now. “I didn’t know what that would mean. I was scared when he showed me Avery. I think I was fucking terrified. That made him go crazy. He was jumping around and laughing and turning into all kinds of things, stuff that never would have crossed my mind, and suddenly _they all worked_. Every last one. Even when he calmed down and put the clown back on.”

Despite your disbelief thus far, this final stretch makes you completely accept the reality of this supernatural clown feeding on children and keeping Patrick around like an exercise in fearmongering. It fits. Haven’t you thought, even known that nothing of this earth could change Patrick Hockstetter, unlock the potential you’re sure he contains? Of course you’ve been right. The clown did it. Not you, for all your trying all this time.

”But he didn’t eat you?” That part feels crucial to get clarity for.

”Obviously.” He flicks your knee. “That all happened pretty recently. My inner clock is out of whack, but it was this week for sure. He got busy after that, didn’t come around again. I fell asleep awhile ago and woke up again because it sounded like he’d gotten ahold of some real fighters. Then the water rose up like some kind of fucking biblical event and spat everything out here, and I hit my head on the way. Passed out.”

It seems in contrast to this thing’s other actions to just spit up all its victims. You can’t find the will to point that out. Too much like complaining, and you’d thought until an hour ago that your favourite person in the world was lost for good. No. No complaints here.

On that same note, the instinct stops you from prodding about whatever newfound feelings are cropping up for Patrick. You feel like you have to wait to mention it, though you can’t guess what for or for how long. At this second, it’s good enough to watch the morning’s first rays of sun break through the treetops and bathe his dirty, gaunt face. It’s real tough to look at in its current state. Still, it’s your favourite face.

What’s less heartfelt is the idiotic move of you turning your head away from him.

The waterway of the Barrens has become well-lit. A few dozen body parts, some stray, some attached to near-whole bodies, fill up most of the space within your view. In a heartbeat you understand why he’d insisted you would believe the piece about the clown eating its victims. Not one limb is without a range of bite marks along the spectrum from nibble to gaping hole.

There is no smell. If there were, if these people and their remains didn’t look as though they’d been somehow embalmed, it would be suffocating. You should be grateful. Instead you lean away and throw up onto the rocks.

”Nasty.” Patrick gives a more characteristic mocking snort. Not a changed man, then.

You wipe stomach acid from your lips with a sleeve.

⚘⚘⚘

The sunrise serves as a backdrop while the two of you argue over how to go about bringing him home. In typical Patrick fashion, he refuses to humour you by checking the body dump for other survivors, on the grounds that “they’re almost all little kids, Tozier, you think they lived through however long of that bullshit?” You’re certainly not in any hurry either to go around poking corpses. It’s decided soon enough that any stragglers will just have to wake up and mosey back to town on their own time.

The next problem lies in how to go about coming back without incriminating himself. It looks more than suspicious for a person like Patrick to be the only one to get away scot-free from a massacre of this extent, and that’s before his violent tendencies are taken into account. 

_Like fuck will I let him get arrested_. Maybe it’s foolish that you don’t give a nanosecond of thought to the idea of him being involved in the perpetration, but you’re not wrong. Patrick has taken baby steps in his psychosis since you’ve known him. Avery aside, he started off with the flies and went slowly along to toads, to birds, to rabbits. Every move he makes is calculated, experimental; he would simply not go from small animals to a small school’s worth of human children.

What’s more, that scenario wouldn’t have led to him looking the way he does. His eyes are glossed over, vomit crusted around his chin — a side effect of the terror at one time — and above all else he appears to be exhausted. The most alien thing about him has forever been his lack of need for sleep. You hate to admit it even if only to yourself, but a Patrick recently gone on a killing spree would be much, much closer to gleeful.

All signs do point towards him being honest about the events leading to this point. Unfortunately, they’re signs that are visible exclusively to people who know how he tends to work. The law in Derry would be all too happy to pin the entire mess on him as an easy out, and that’s not even considering the adult ignorance of late. Preserving his innocence is only going to happen if you get him home without making a scene of it.

Last is the moral conundrum of leaving a bunch of dead kids here.

”Do we have an anonymous tip line in Derry?” you wonder aloud.

Patrick just stares at you.

”_What?_ I saw it on TV once.”

”Just...” He waves a dismissive hand. “We’ll walk home and stay shut up. Someone will come around here to see the mess one of these days.”

”And drop dead of a heart attack,” you grumble, but there isn’t a lot of room for argument.

The sun suggests it’s six or so when Patrick stretches his legs out and goes to stand up. He stumbles to balance his weight after their age of disuse. Hung up by his arms to one of the cave walls, isn’t that what he’d said in that haunted tone? It sends a shiver up your spine. He doesn’t reach down to help you up, never has, but watches expectantly from above. Probably best that way. You could see the grime beneath his fingernails from the fucking town square. 

“Um.” You teeter back and forth on your knees. “How are we gonna get back?”

That would be in referral to the twenty-wide pool of bodies blocking the easiest way back onto the path which leads home. Sure, you walked over them in order to get here, barefoot, no less, but that was in the dark. And during your time of feeling more or less possessed. _Real me, me in the daylight, is literally not stepping on that again. Fuck nope_.

You nod in agreement with your own thoughts, staring into the middle distance to avoid Patrick’s glare. “Fuck nope.”

”Fucking girls,” he sighs. “Get on.”

”What?”

He crouches at your side. Clear of an invitation to hop on his back as it is, you sit for a minute, not comprehending. It’s all very standard Patrick in the presentation: he sounds resigned, inconvenienced, doing this for the sole purpose of making his own life easier. There’s an air about it that seems deeper, though. After all, nothing aside from decency would stop him from going on his own merry way and leaving you to come up with a detour alone.

You move hesitantly, hands coming to settle upon his shoulders and pressing your weight to the scraped landscape of his back. He unfolds to stand back up. It makes you feel like a kid when he does an odd little dance to get your legs securely hooked around his waist.

To break the silence, you point across the haphazard morgue, averting your eyes from the hideous scene below to preserve some good spirit. “Onward.”

”Fucking Tozier,” he says. It doesn’t matter that his face isn’t visible from here; you hear the eye roll clear as day.

Once the Barrens are cleared and the squelching noises cease, you start to relax. It’s still early in the morning enough that your mom won’t be awake and late enough for Daddy to be off at work. There shouldn’t be any trouble getting back in your still-open window. You suppose Patrick will have to come too, since his parents aren’t around for the time being.

_That might get hard to hide after awhile. I guess it’s probably time that Mom finds out who I’ve been hanging out with for three years anyways._ Not Daddy, though. You don’t dare give that a thought. Cross that bridge when you come to it.

The two of you must be a sight to behold — both barefoot, Patrick shirtless and filthy, carrying you on his back like a koala as he passes over the treeline out onto the street. There’s Henry’s house. It’ll probably be high on today’s to-do list to head over there, but waking him up with what looks like a ghoul version of the friend he assumes is dead might make him jump out of his skin.

”We all wanted to come look for you,” you say out of nowhere. Your conscience deems it imperative that he know you didn’t all just settle to let him stay missing. “Last night. It didn’t feel right so I said we would try tomorrow, but. This happened. Just so you know.”

”Nice of you not to forget me,” is the extent of what you get in return.

_Jeez, the snark. So sorry I didn’t consciously realize you were gone until yesterday, only assumed you’d ditched me for good after I didn’t let you do whatever you wanted to do to me. I’m totally the asshole here._

You’d forgotten about that incident up until now. At this point, it may as well have happened during a different lifetime.

The rhythmic patter of Patrick’s feet on the pavement lulls you into a light doze halfway home. All things considered, between only getting a few hours of sleep sitting on the lawn and then being thrown through a washer-dryer cycle of emotion throughout the night, it’s miraculous of you not to pass out, but you’re more lucid than you should be. Coming up on the curb next to your own house wakes you back up.

”Window,” you direct as though he hadn’t already been headed for his usual route up.

Dismounting from his back accidentally sprawls you out on the grass, and you stare at eachother before giving matching snickers. A bird that was lodged in the tree until your hand disrupts it gives an indignant cheep and flutters off. It’s not needed, but you appreciate the boost Patrick lends you onto the high branch nonetheless. The careless _thwap_ of his lanky body falling to the bedroom floor behind you once you’ve both made it inside? Not so much. You shush him.

Footsteps don’t threaten to discover you in spite of the noise. The issue at hand now is less to do with hiding Patrick — worst case scenario, he can duck into the closet — but rather the state of his clothes (read: lack thereof) and cleanliness. Once, Richie went on a shower strike for a week because Mom had only bought women’s shampoo. In closed quarters, the smell coming from Patrick reminds you of that week, increased tenfold. Sewer stench.

Richie himself is the only solution to this. He’s got a few newer things he has yet to grow all the way into, surely still too short for this beanpole, but the best choice until you can go see the rest of the gang.

”Stay here,” you say. He knows the drill. Don’t make a sound, hide or jump out the window if he’s about to be found depending on whether it’s Mom or Daddy, etcetera. This time you also feel inclined to add “Keep those pants off of my stuff.”

Thanks be to God that Richie is a heavy sleeper. He would flip his shit if he awoke to find you, fully dressed at six-thirty and dishevelled enough to exhibit that you did not, in fact, stay home true to promise, rooting through the drawers of his dresser. After two dozen awful Hawaiian-style shirts, you hit the jackpot on a nondescript size-16 grey v-neck and the longest pair of jeans to be found. It’s a little out of pocket to scour your brother’s underwear drawer, so you make the executive decision to allow Patrick to fend for himself on that front.

Patrick, ever the shit-disturber, is laying spread out on your bed when you return.

For a moment you just look at him. The urge to screech in disgust begs to be beaten down with a stick. He’s looking for that, you note with no shortage of disappointment. Same old sadistic mind games. Always on a smaller scale when it comes to you as opposed to anybody else, but it still threatens to wrench a final few tears from your dehydrated ducts.

”Get up.” You toss the clothes at him, hoping beyond hope that he doesn’t see your underwhelming reaction as a challenge. It’d break you to pieces if he returned right to the Patrick he was when you last saw him. That could be bound to happen for all you know, but Jesus, not while it’s all so fresh. “I’m thirsty. You want me to bring some water while you change?”

He hums an affirmation. Good. Shit disturbing is over for now.

Downstairs, you spend longer than strictly necessary filling two cups with water from the kitchen sink. In part it’s so that you can be sure not to walk in on any more of a naked Patrick than you’ve had to see so far. Honestly, you also need to take a breather. This is a lot to process. Going from oblivious and thinking you were being ignored, to having your heart carved out with a rusty knife at the thought of never seeing him again, to the eerie sensation that overtook you and led you to the Barrens. To Patrick. Upstairs changing into your brother’s clothes and acting halfway himself, halfway something unfamiliar.

_But not unwelcome_. You lean on the kitchen counter and take a long sip. _Unsteady. If he goes right back to normal, to his normal, I don’t think I’ll even be able to see him. This is giving me a lot more hope than I can afford to have_.

How many times have you wished for this? What’s more, you’ve known it to be possible, despite never having guessed that it would happen via omnipotent local cryptid. (That whole part will give you a headache if you try to think on it too hard.) It’s only been a few hours with a few minor shifts in how he’s spoken and acted, but it’s gotten you so excited. For it to just be a fluke sounds like a perfect cruel joke. Wouldn’t it be funny.

Oddly, it doesn’t strike you until you’re about to head back upstairs that food would be a good idea. 

Jesus, the last thing Patrick would have eaten... did he even have a hot dog before all the shit at the bonfire went down? Was his proverbial last supper your stale Corn Pops? You’re pretty sure you still have that same box. They aren’t a hit in the Tozier household.

Scrambling eggs would look unusual if Mom wakes up. You throw together a messy breakfast spread as quiet as possible, toast and peanut butter, some leftover bacon from the fridge, a handful of small peelable oranges. Those are Patrick’s favourite. He’d told you when you were a fresh addition to Henry’s gang that he likes the texture because they burst open like something alive. Creepy, but the way he can devour them, you figure that was all tough guy talk and he just enjoys the taste. 

Balancing two plates and their matches water glasses feels like an Olympic sport. The stairs take five minutes to climb, you’re so careful.

Patrick isn’t asleep when you get back. You’d hoped he might be. The bags under his eyes are kind of brutal to look at. He’s reclined in the beanbag, clad in Richie’s clothes, jeans running out of material two inches above his ankle and the shirt barely touching their waist and. It occurs to you that giving him the clothes _after_ making him shower would have been a better course of action. Mom won’t be gone for another — you glance at the clock on the bedside table — hour and a half, at nine. Your poor nose will have to stick it out.

”Oranges.” He perks up and makes grabby hands. “You some kind of chef now?”

”Just toast ‘n’ leftovers,” you protest. Now is not the time to be all blushy and bashful.

Thankfully, he takes no notice. The timeframe between handing him the breakfast plate and him handing it back scraped clean is surreal. You’re still on your second half-slice of toast. Another abnormality with thanks to being stuck in the sewers, or cave, or wherever. Like sleep, Patrick has regarded food as a decision rather than a need since you’ve known him, so devouring that in two minutes flat is a change of pace.

”Good?”

He nods, licking juicy orange pulp from his fingers.

_Not so deliberate ‘n’ dainty now, huh?_ You don’t dare to mention it. This particular elephant in the room is likely to stomp on you if you should point it out.

”So.” Patrick clicks an overgrown fingernail on the floor. “Been busy?”

Peanut butter sticks to your throat on the way down. You shrug.

”I hadn’t seen any of the guys until yesterday,” you admit. “I thought they didn’t want me to. Turns out it’s just been hard times all around. Your mom got Henry in real trouble, Patrick, that’s how worried she was.”

He makes a token _not my problem_ gesture. “She’s a bitch.”

_Well, okay, asswipe. You wandered out to do your freaky rituals and Henry just about got beat to death about it, but your mom’s the bitch for loving your heartless ass enough to worry. That’s sensible_. 

Before you think it over, you snap “Yeah, well, you get it from somewhere.” Then you wince. It’s too late.

Here’s the Patrick you know and hate to love. Here’s the hard set of his jaw, the vast expanse of pupil when his eyes turn cold, the _who-do-you-think-you’re-talking-to_ double blink. This comes about immediately, no trace of the threads of humanity he’d displayed before. Now you have to wonder if they were there at all. Wishful thinking is what made that mess at the bonfire, isn’t it?

He leans forward. “What is it you mean by that?”

Your inner voice of reason is chanting to quit while you’re only a bit behind. The other and presently unwelcome inhabitant of your conscience is your inner voice of nastiness. She contradicts _Tell him how it is!_

Well. Not like you have a lot to lose.

”You know.” You set your plate to the side. “You know what I mean. And I know _you_. I knew about Avery, I knew about the fridge, I knew that you could be better even if it took a fucking clown to break you, I just didn’t know how to do it myself. I know you tried to kiss me because you thought I would let you and you know that I wanted to. Where the fuck do we go from there, Patrick? What else am I supposed to say?”

Oh, are you ever in danger. Through the mini-monologue, you’d felt a trace of the confidence you had standing up to Henry in the forest clearing years ago, but it dissipates in no time, offering none of the same success of that instance. Patrick is not Henry. Patrick is standing up to maximize the threatening factor of looming over you where you’re seated at the foot of the bed. Patrick’s face holds no expression, only empty north behind his eyes, those blown-out pupils. You only last until his feet are two inches from yours until you start to cower back.

It’s reminiscent of a horror movie scene. Of the low budget D-list actor variety. The curtain of greasy hair hangs limp in front of his eyes as he leans down so you’re face-to-face. Always pronounced, the hollows of his cheeks have sunken further with malnourishment. Ghoulish.

You don't dare move although it seems certain he’s going to slap you. It’s happened a single time prior, when you’d jokingly made fun of his role in the group compared to Henry as the leader. That time had been gentle enough to pass off as messing around because the whole gang was there. Nobody is here now to soften the blow.

The hand comes up — that’s one thing that’s for sure. However, the slow, almost pensive way it goes back down to rest at his side? That’s confusing.

You don’t let your guard down. Just the same, Patrick doesn’t bother to hit you.

”You don’t know shit,” he says softly. Returning without another word to lounge in the beanbag.

The other shoe never drops, but you keep right on waiting, convinced he’ll stand back up and charge at you like a deranged jack-in-the-box, but it never comes. Ticking from the clock drones in your ears.

Eventually, you pick up your orange and start to eat it piece by piece, maintaining wary eye contact with a newly calm Patrick.

You eat a fifth piece, leaving exactly half.

”I want to have that.”

This is so, so not worth picking a fight over. You hold out the rest, partway expecting him to eat it out of the palm of your hand like a horse. Wouldn’t that be the icing on the insane cake. In an act of mercy, he takes it and eats it in one bite. With this kind of hunger, a suspicious amount of food is apt to go missing from here in the immediate future.

Risking being caught returning two sets of dishes to the kitchen would be unwise. As if Patrick’s stench isn’t enough to attract flies, you stack both plates on the table. An awkward silence descends with the absence of any chewing.

Exhaustion slams into you, a semitruck going full speed. On the other hand, the meal has woken Patrick right up. He regards you with gleaming eyes.

”You can sleep,” he says. “I won’t give myself away. There isn’t much else for you to do until the old lady leaves.”

”My mom’s not old. She’s, like, thirty-five.” But you’ve already lowered yourself to lie down. A nap sounds exquisite. Knowing from experience that it’s a fruitless offer and he’ll sooner spend the next few hours alternating watching you sleep and staring at the wall, you add “You can get a blanket outta the closet if you want a nap too. They’re on the bottom rack.”

More tired than expected, you’re almost passed out when your head hits the pillow. Patrick’s “I know where they are” barely registers.

It’s a restful sleep. The first you’ve had in around seven weeks.

⚘⚘⚘

_Motherfucker_. You blink awake to an empty room, not immediately recalling why that’s bad.

It looks close to noon. The two foreseeable circumstances are that A) your mom discovered Patrick and kicked him out while you were sleeping like the dead, or B) she left for work and he’s roaming free. What with his inherent tendency to wreak havoc, neither is uplifting to consider.

When you go to stick your head out of the cracked door to the hallway, the sound of running water from the bathroom alleviates the fear of option A. Richie is an avid nighttime bather. It has to be Patrick in there. The prospect of seeing him clean and looking more like himself than a homeless man living in a garbage dump is pleasant.

_Plus I have the room to myself_. You give an excited shimmy. _Clean clothes time_.

The thin sweatpants you’d donned under the impression of spending the night in the sewers were near falling apart to begin with, not helped out by having sat on rocks for several hours. With the air through the open window warm but interjected by whistling gusts of wind, a hoodie-shorts combo makes sense. You opt for an old one of Richie’s with a big front pocket to clasp your hands cozily inside.

Nothing else to do while you wait for Patrick to finish his shower, so you flop back into bed and lose yourself in thought, eyes fixed on a bump in the popcorn ceiling that looks kind of like a goat. You don’t venture anywhere too deep, keeping away from the topics of the clown, the bodies, the all-knowing possession that’d overcome you. The less panic-inducing paths are lighter things, the excitement of going over to Henry’s soon and having the gang all together. You’ll have to call up Vic and Belch to get them there. Maybe be elusive and make it a surprise. They won’t exactly be thrilled beyond belief, but Patrick’s as much a part of the group as anyone; at the least, they’ll be glad that he’s alive.

_Should I try to talk to them about how different he’s acted? That might jinx it. Besides, it was only really noticeable right after I found him. I’ll be lucky if he says or does anything like that while we’re there, luckier if he doesn’t and Vic believes me anyway_.

Vic’s the obvious choice to share this with. Then again, Henry’s a bit less anti-Patrick because he’s not as protective over you. He could be better to start off with.

Yourself and Richie are identical in one key aspect — short attention span, which often translates to obliviousness. Especially so when you’ve got something on your mind. This family trait has yet to serve either of you well. Today, it renders you unaware of the footsteps moving from your brother’s room past your own and to the bathroom, where the shower has been turned off and its freshly clean occupant doesn’t know about the door’s faulty lock.

However, you do hear the resulting shriek just fine.

”What the _fuck_.” Richie’s yell floats through the walls. “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.”

It has the potential to go on forever.

You come hurtling out of the bedroom, stopped halfway through the hall like a deer caught in the headlights. Steam radiates out of the open bathroom door and dissolves around a horrified Richie, who stands stock-still. He’s facing opposite to you, otherwise enrapt by the sight of Patrick. Patrick wearing Richie’s clothes. Patrick with — is that a hand-towel turban to dry his hair? 

Unwittingly, you laugh.

Noise breaks the spell. Richie turns in slow motion to see you, pure murder on his face. In accordance, Patrick breaks into a grin behind him.

”Richie.” You're already in protest. “He was—“

_”He’s supposed to be dead!”_

You reel back. How nice it would be to go a day without feeling threatened, but he comes at you fast, hands waving madly in the air.

”You don’t underst—“

”Oh, I fucking understand,” he says, and the weight behind his words is heavy. He does understand. You can tell that much with certainty. Perhaps in a way related to his absence all summer, both mental and physical, his crazed fear when telling you not to go out in the night. It would seem you aren’t the only one burdened with purpose. “I can only imagine what,” he turns again to catch an unbothered Patrick in his fiery gaze, “what’d you do, freakshow, huh? You team up with the old motherfucker and steal kids with him? Get your rocks off while you were at it? There’s no way, no _fucking_ way his ass let you out alive unless you were worth something to him, no _way he let you live this long when I thought my sister could finally be rid of you—_“

”He wasn’t hungry for Patrick,” you say in a small voice.

Richie is not a yeller. Swearing has been a striking enough medium for him to get his point across since he was eight or so. Unhinges this way, he scares you, not in a manner in which you’ve been scared of a person before. At least Patrick is predictable in instability; at least Henry is all bark and no bite for you. Your brother is brand new territory in a bad way.

He gets suddenly, carefully quieter. “What did you say?”

Through your anxiousness at how close up to you he is, at the chaotic energy rolling off him in waves, you speak again, clear and concise. “It didn’t want to eat him.”

”No.” Richie shakes his head. “You said it wasn’t hungry.”

_Did I? I did. That isn’t the way Patrick told the story, he said the thing just didn’t eat him, so why did I say that it wasn’t hungry?_

You say it because it’s true. Where the fact materialized from is less important. “It wasn’t. Patrick didn’t get scared the way it needed him to.”

”[Y/N], how do you know fuck-all about It?” Now the pronoun carries more personification. Much as you’ve spontaneously learned about the clown-thing in recent hours, Richie evidently knows a whole lot more. That, you deduce, is more than probably associated with how he acted last night, where he went and whatever he did when he got there.

”I dunno. Just do.”

”You just do.” He looks down at you with apparent amazement. The buzz of hyperactivity ebbs away.

You nod.

”Okay,” he says. Then he collapses forward with his arms coming to wrap around you, to hold you tight against his chest, head buried in your hair. Like he’s letting go of some age-old worry. Happenings from all through the past few months play like videotape in your mind — when he’d brought home a stack of Derry history books from the library for a ‘research project’ though his only classes at the time had been math and woodshop; leaving hope some nights with a face like he wasn’t sure he’d ever see the front door again; doing everything in his power to keep you safe as kids in this town can be. Richie has known more than he let on the whole time. He always will, because you don’t intend to ask. Whatever partially-formed pieces of knowledge have been given to you are enough. You hug him back twice as tight. 

The slow clap starts after it’s been two or three minutes of this. 

On one hand, you can’t blame Patrick for not wanting to third-wheel a milestone tender sibling moment. Does he have to be such a douche about it, though?

”Touching,” he calls out. “Really great. I’m assuming we’re all clear here so I can close the door and piss like I was trying to do when you accosted me, Trashmouth.”

Muffled through your hair but plenty audible, Richie says “I still wish you were dead.”

The bathroom door slams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as usual! point out any mistakes if u see em! luv ya


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it is 2am i have a COLD im dying goodbye please comment if u notice any big ol mistakes so i can fix em mwah

It’s Patrick’s idea to hide in the bushes across the street from Henry’s house and wait for Vic and Belch to arrive after you mention wanting to surprise them. (Of course it is.) Personally, you would’ve been content to wait in the comfort of your home and gamble on whether you’d beat them both there, but sure, crouching here and being stabbed by twigs is great too.

On the telephone, Vic had sounded happy to be seeing you. Hopefully the surprise tagalong doesn’t crush that. Belch’s mom answered their phone and was pleased as punch to hear from you. Both boys’ parents adore you. Rightfully so.

”I’m bored,” you announce. Patrick is busy poking a dead slug with the tip of his borrowed shoe. “Stop it.”

”No.”

The shoe is too small. He looks like an idiot, waving around such a spindly leg only for it to end in a tiny sneaker. If nothing else, the look of him should amuse everybody enough to soften the blow of him being back. Not for the first or fifth time, a mental image of Patrick in his towel turban and a shirt two sizes too small pops up, effectually complete with Richie in the foreground yelling and waving his arms.

That’s it. You burst out laughing. The blatant distaste Patrick regards you with, all the while poking the slug, just serves to send you rolling.

When you wheeze for a final time and get your shit back together, he’s directing much softer eyes towards you. Brief and easy to pass off as imagination like every other oddity to come from him today. Still. You beam up at him, not caring that it’s answered with a huff and a turn of his head.

A puttering engine makes itself known. Patrick has a better view on his sparser side of the shrub than you do, nodding an affirmation when you mouth _Is it them?_ Here’s the Trans Am. Showtime, baby. You mouth that, too. He thankfully doesn’t see.

You shove in front of him to watch Vic and Belch leave the car and disappear into the house. Now the hope is that none of them happens to look out any front window to see you two creeping across the road. 

Once the distance has been crossed and you stand on the front porch, you draw a blank, though.

”Patrick. Do I knock or do you?”

”Don't care.”

Very helpful. Time for some introspection. _What has more comedic value, me knocking with him behind me, or him knocking, or both of us? Oh my god. If I had a trenchcoat we could stack up and knock looking like a tall guy. That’d be great. Do I have a trenchcoat?_

Taking advantage of your self-inflicted distraction, Patrick knocks.

”You bitch,” you whisper.

A few seconds of quiet follow. Three sets of footsteps sound from inside, thudding towards the door. You see Belch’s head poke up to look out the closest window. Desperately, you put your finger to your mouth in a shushing motion to him. He looks back and forth between you and Patrick like he’s watching a ping-pong match. With clear disbelief, he ducks back, and you hear the latch click on the door.

”Princess showed up,” Henry’s saying, swinging it open with that lazy grin of his reserved for you. He stops cold at the sight of Patrick. You decide it should definitely have been you to do the knocking and stand in front of the door. Soften the blow. As it were, you and your unexpected guest face off with the gang in deafening quiet.

Once the tension has grown too much, you make weak jazz hands. “Surprise?”

Patrick huffs and shoulders past Henry to get in. You trail behind, unable to do much to answer the _what the fuck_ looks aimed in your direction. It’s not like you’re gonna explain it all from out on the porch.

His first movement since seeing Patrick, Henry slowly shuts the door when you’re in, turning to face you with Vic and Belch flanking him. The other boy has already disappeared deeper into the house. Crunching noises come from the kitchen.

It’s Belch who breaks the spell. “I thought we weren’t gonna try and find him til tomorrow.”

”No, fuck that,” Henry says, seeing your expression and getting ahead of you before you try to pass the whole thing off with nervous humour. “This ain’t even funny. Hockstetter’s in the sewers, right? That’s what we figured? So what’s he doing eating my fucking Cheetos right now?”

The crunching stops.

A bunch of questions come up at once, largely from Henry and some from Vic, urgent and chaotic. Wondering what happened and when and why and where you found him, or did he come back by himself, and whose fucking tiny clothes is he wearing, he looks like a real geek—

“Quit it.” You don’t have to raise your voice. It’s standard for you to be pretty pliable. You’ll tell your boys whatever they want to know, you’ll help them with their homework (or do it for them), you’ll make Belch’s favourite banana bread anytime he asks for it. For you to reject this means it’s serious. None of them are too stupid or too mean to ignore that. “Just stop for a minute and let’s go sit down. Patrick’s just hungry, Henry. He’s has a rough couple of months, you know?”

_Crunch, crunch, crunch_.

Wordlessly, Henry leads the group to his room. Patrick emerges and takes up the rear, now carrying the Cheetos bag close to his chest. Given the choice, you tend to prefer the Bowers’ living room — nothing in this house is up to hygiene standards, but Butch’s girlfriend tidies the common areas every few weeks or so. Such is not the case in the bedroom. This might be the only time you’ve been in here without stepping on dirty boxer shorts. 

The deal that you and Patrick had made, mostly born out of boredom amid hiding in the bushes for an hour, was that you could do most of the explaining and leave him to answer questions if needed. It’s difficult enough story to swallow. Coming from his mouth, it’d be that much more of a roulette to be believed.

With all five seated around the room (you end up foot-to-foot with Patrick on the bed, one of you sat up against either side of the frame, while Henry slouches beside you and Vic and Belch take to the floor), you dive in. Starting with Richie’s weird insistence that you stay home last night gives it a rocky beginning. The general responsive murmur is to do with the fact that he’s weird all of the time. Fair. True. Around the part of the retelling where you toe around the subject of that sixth sense thing is where it starts to reel them in, for better or for worse.

Nobody is as accepting right off the bat as you were. You can’t blame them. It’d been different to hear it straight from Patrick’s mouth while he’d been so raw; there had been little room to question his honesty, no real reason not to believe him by the time he got to the end of the story. That’s not including the wild way you came about him. For the two of you to show up and spring this on everyone, more so now that Patrick’s cleaned up and looking less like a man who’s indeed been held captive by a monster, must look like it could be a fucked-up joke. All you can wish is that your boys trust you enough to give it the benefit of the doubt.

When none of the other three can be bothered to speak up after you’ve finished, all of them with varying degrees of disbelief evident on their features, Patrick adds on. First, the sound of his voice makes you wince. _We agreed you weren’t supposed to talk yet for a reason_, you try to communicate with your eyes. And a swift kick to his shin. He doesn’t fuck up as bad as he could, though, a small blessing.

”You chodes can sit there and be suspicious,” he tells the room, reaching down. “I don’t care if you are. Just makes you stupid.”

He’d reached for the too-short pants leg and now brings it up with some effort. It’s too tight. So sue you, you did the best you could do with what little you had. They make it to his knee, directly around which there is a jagged circle of scab, initially unrecognizable. It, you realize with a tremor, is a massive bite mark, characterized by pebbled toothlike imprints sunken deep into the pasty skin. That must have happened before he’d woken up down there right after being taken. Thinking back, there’d been a tear around that spot in the crusty pants he’d been wearing this morning. You hadn’t thought much of it.

Belch, appropriately, burps. It’s his personal brand of revolted gagging.

Henry’s resolve starts to crumble. “Could be anything, Hockstetter. You and your freaky shit with the animals, you coulda tried to mess with bear cubs and got away with that to show for it. Doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

_Really?_ you want to say. _Yeah, sure. He got in an argument with a bear and doesn’t have any more than that to show for it. Explains where he’s been all this time. Genius, Bowers. You caught us lying_. 

“Shut it.”

There’s Vic. Everyone’s head turns in his direction. He has a good way of doing that, same as you, rarely apt to call this type of attention, so that it’s certain he means business when he does. Though being talked back to puts Henry on the defensive, he lets it slide.

”You know it, Bowers, so don’t act clueless,” he says stolidly. “It’s not normal what’s been going down around town lately, like the whole place caught a sickness bug, and I’ll be fucked if I’m the only one who’s had some weird shit happen to me too.”

”Like what?” Speaking above a whisper feels taboo. You swallow.

He shifts weight back and forth from leg to leg. “I went out to the bridge a couple of weeks back to take some pictures, and I’m not in the goddamn mood to hear you preach how photography’s for girls, Henry, so don’t start. Wasn’t out there for very long because the clouds looked like rain and there was wind coming through, bouncing off the inside of the bridge. It sounded like voices. Little kids. When I got home to get the photos under a blacklight, there was a guy.”

”The clown,” Patrick fills in.

”No.” Vic shakes his head. “Not for me, I guess. He looked like Freddy Krueger on steroids, that’s the best I can say it. I can’t show it because he was gone outta the pictures when I tried to show my mom.”

”Convenient, ain’t it,” Henry grunts, but you see the resigned slump of his shoulders.

Neither you nor Vic is one for horror movies. It’s been problematic the few times the gang has pooled enough cash to hit the theatre._ A Nightmare on Elm Street _is the last one you were dragged to, last because you both got scared enough to leave halfway through and made it so the ticket price wasn’t worth it. That’s the only time you’ve seen Vic cry. More out of embarrassment at wimping out than out of fear, really. Taking Freddy's form must have been a home run for the clown. Not just scary in looks but in the implication of weakness.

Belch pipes up next. “Mine wasn’t long after Patrick went lost.” That anxious burp again. “I was fixin’ up that loose latch on the trunk of the car, the one that squeaks, y’all know. So I had half of me out of the garage and half in. And it didn’t make sense, cuz that garage door is the fancy new kind that comes down when you press the clicker button. Automated. You know? It came down like it was on a string that got cut. Woulda cut me in half if I’d moved slower out of the way.”

Choosing to ignore that whole piece about the automation, Henry makes a final dig. “Yeah, musta been a ghost, huh? A fucking clown or Freddy Krueger or—“

”Shut the fuck _up_,” Patrick shouts. “Shut your mouth, Henry. I don’t have a damn thing to gain lying about this, much as I wish I was, and whatever you’re hiding, we all know it’s there, we know you’re on the same page as everybody else so choke down your fucking pride for once in your life.”

Still intent to save it for Vic later, you’d avoided any mention about the shifts in Patrick’s whole self while you’d talked about the rest of the situation. You might not be met with as much skepticism from him as you’d prepared for after this episode. This is an _outburst_. Patrick’s gotten pissy, he gets aggressive, never angry. Anger is too passionate. An outburst until now would have been too passionate.

There may as well be huge cartoon question marks floating over all heads in the room besides the two of yours.

No, the anger doesn’t go unnoticed by any of them. It appears to leave Henry shaken. More importantly, the point of the rant hits home.

You nod minutely in Henry’s direction, encouraging. It must kill him to submit like this. He opens and closes his mouth a few times on the way to beginning his own explanation.

_You got this, Bowers. Having fears doesn’t make you less cool. I promise_. Maybe telepathy comes with this whole omniscience deal. He takes one last big inhale.

”Same kinda shit happened more than once for me,” he admits. “I only think the one time really matters, though. After Hockstetter’s mom came around and Butch was laying into me, his voice... his face. They kept going all wavy. Like the sun pulls heat off of a blacktop, you get me. By the time it went anywhere for sure I figured I was about to pass out so I’s just seeing things. Things like all of you think you saw.” That’s his concession, of course, the hint that all five of you might just be sharing one crazy dream. If it’s what he needs to say to make himself be honest, no harm. “His head disappeared for a second. It was cut clean off his shoulders, and his hands were cut at the wrists, but he kept right on beating me with the fucking stumps, and then I did pass out.”

There’s definitely more to it than him being creeped out by headless handless people. Something strikes a familiar chord in a forgotten nook of your memory. Hadn’t Emily Bowers worked in the pyjama factory between Derry and Bangor before she died? Before the place got shut down for safety hazards? You were too young when it happened to know firsthand, but it’s Derry. People talk.

”Your mom,” you say. He nods.

”What kind of idiot sticks her head in a cloth-cutting machine to have a look-see why it ain’t working?” His humourless laugh gives you chills. “Picking up her girlfriend’s shift to buy my birthday present no less, and my old man used to say he ought to see me lose my hands for what happened to her.”

This isn’t a therapy session, you know, but you’re a comforter by nature. It kills you to hold back from telling him that it wasn’t his fault she died. Plenty of years of similar emotional stunting to cater to Patrick keeps you mute. 

A heaviness hangs in the air of the bedroom for some indeterminate time after Henry gives his conclusion. It’s out in the open now. If he of all people can acknowledge it, there’s no room for doubt. 

You exhale in relief, grateful that this didn’t go south. Much as you adore Patrick, being disowned by the rest of the Bowers gang for crazy talk would leave him as your only actual friend, and that’d be kind of cruel.

Think of the devil. He holds out the bright orange bag to anyone who cares to take it. “Cheeto?”

⚘⚘⚘

”...and when she finally forgave the old man for complaining about her cooking, what did she bring over? _More beans._”

Uproarious laughter keels everybody over, only getting louder when Belch leans too far and nearly dives out of his lawnchair into the firepit. Henry looks pleased at his dramatic re-enactment of a fight between Butch and his girlfriend being such a hit. He’d been the one to suggest a do-over of the last bonfire. After the few days you’ve had, not to mention the few months that Patrick’s had, it’s surprising that neither of you is nodding off, especially now that it’s past nine, dark. The Bud Light in his hand is definitely what’s keeping him awake, but you’re sober as ever, running on pure elation. How lonely the season had been without the boys.

_I have them now, though. A little bit extra at that. What’s that face Patrick’s making?_

One you haven’t seen before. He’s reclined, relaxed, eyes half-lidded, mouth soft. Content. As if he can feel your gaze, he flicks his over to you, expression unchanged. The last time you’d sat across from him here, the message he’d been putting out had been nothing short of predatory. This is a welcome change.

Henry notices it too. Not with so much enthusiasm as yourself. He glances back and forth, gauging the energy between the two of you, and apparently deciding now is as good a time as any to disturb the peace. It’s partially out of hostility from last time, you know. That doesn’t make it much better.

”You look mighty fine tonight, princess,” he says, clicking the nails of one hand on his beer can. “If we’re all gonna be back together, though, you’d better start wearing coveralls to hang around us. Wouldn’t wanna get Hockstetter riled up again now that he’s been through so much.”

_Fuck, I wish he’d take another drink_. There’s an alcoholic hierarchy to Henry’s mood; one drink is only enough to get him a little off-kilter, but it can go good or bad. Two makes him solidly gleeful and it’s all uphill from there. Bad timing will lead to this sort of high-on-himself irritability on occasion. _God forbid one night goes well_.

By default, you go rigid, prepared for a rare but always ill-fated confrontation. It’s what’s happened in each prior set of similar circumstances. If you’d had the foresight, you’d have picked less form-fitting shorts just to avoid this, but it’s become so normal to dress even nicer than this that it didn’t enter your thoughts. _And I shouldn’t have to!_ Your inner voice is indignant. _Jesus, I’m wearing a hoodie. It’s not like I came in a crop top. Didn’t I start dressing more like a teenager so that I wouldn’t feel so weird about being girly? Here these assholes are, making it weird again. For what, so Henry can remind himself that he’s the head bitch in charge?_

Patrick doesn’t bite.

You hold back on talking for a minute, give him first dibs. Nothing comes.

”I’m comfy, Henry,” you finally retort. “Don’t make it weird.”

”Me?” He slaps a palm over his heart. “I’d never. Only tryna remind you to be careful. Just cuz your brother told you that clown motherfucker is gone, don’t mean you’re safe from everything.”

”Take another fuckin’ beer,” Vic groans. “Christ, Bowers. The last fire didn’t go bad enough, you want to try again?”

You make a cut-throat motion at Vic, a back-off signal, because the last thing Henry needs is another challenge. He sees Patrick’s whole existence as one already. There’s a dangerous line being weaved over. “He’s fine. You’re fine, Henry. I’m fine too. We’re all fine.”

The calming tone of your voice semi-works. Henry settles, crosses his arms over his chest. It’s easy. So easy that it should set off a red flag or two, but you’re out of practice in this field. You aren’t expecting him to spit a sizeable loogie at Patrick. 

“Come on,” protests Belch. Too late.

If you’d been impressed at Patrick’s keeping of his cool, now you decide he must have been biding his time. Waiting for this. The way he moves, gone from sitting to stood tilted over Henry in a heartbeat, is fluid. Graceful. 

“You don’t know when to quit, Bowers,” he hisses through his teeth. “Just can’t hold your tongue. You’re gonna try to fuck with me right now?”

Henry’s up on his feet too. “So what if I am, freakshow? You think everyone forgets what you tried to pull last time we saw you? Ain’t no get-outta-jail-free cards just because you—“

He doesn’t get to finish before he goes sprawling backwards. Your brain lags to catch up with the image of Patrick reeling back and punching him square in the face. 

There’s a chorus of gasps. It’s Patrick's niche to talk the talk, scare everybody shitless long before they get the chance to really piss him off. This has gone zero to ten. The weight of it isn’t lost on Henry, who sits up with a nosebleed and a dazed look about him. Just another wound to top off the ones still healing from his dad. Hadn’t that been Patrick’s fault by extension too?

You share Henry’s confusion, his slow processing of what exactly is going on here, so you nearly end up watching Patrick jump forward to lay into him with those furious balled fists. 

At the last second, you cry “Stop it!”

For a nerve-wracking instant you’re sure this is the very same boy who went missing in late June, and why wouldn’t it be? A stone-cold machine of calculated violence. It’s beyond you right now to notice that this isn’t so calculated at all, not thoughtful or planned. He’s just _doing_.

Contrarily, he hesitates. Only for a millisecond. A millisecond is all you need — for there to be any hesitation at all tells you that he _isn’t_ exactly what he’s always been. You rocket upward and fling your arms around him, face to his back. To think that it’s been less than a day since he’d piggybacked you all the way home from the Barrens. _He isn’t the same,_ you insist to yourself, relishing in the sensation of him relaxing in your grasp. _He wouldn’t have given it a second thought. Wouldn’t have let me grab him this way, wouldn’t be calming down. He never even needed calming down. Getting frustrated enough to act out is new_. 

“Sit down,” you say into his shirt. It’s Henry’s now instead of Richie’s. He stays put. “Please.”

There’s a minor sway in his stance. “Bowers can sit down first.”

_Jesus, you’re a child_ is what you’d like to say. “Henry?”

Henry, sat up on the lawn with a shoe taken off and a sock pressed hastily to the stream of blood coming from his nose, glares. You glare right back. Now is not the time to be prideful, he has to know.

Vic, ever the voice of reason, deadpans from behind. “How about [Y/N] sits down first, then you, then Patrick. Then neither of you is going first. That tickle your egos?”

Reluctant, you let go, backing away slowly enough that you’re ready to jump him again if he doesn’t stay put. You get back in your chair and Henry pulls himself up. Part of you expects him to spit again at Patrick’s feet on the way by. He’s got enough of a sense of self-preservation not to.

Finally, Patrick turns back around to assume his seat. The furrow of his eyebrows would look like plain anger to anyone else, but you can see it for what it is. It’s confusion. Some variant of it. Like he’s not sure what to make of himself.

⚘⚘⚘

From there on, the bonfire returns to its upbeat state, partially owed to Henry’s chugging of three more beers within twenty minutes after the would-be fight. He scrounges up a pack of stale marshmallows to impale on twigs and toast, despite you being the only one attentive enough to toast instead of burn. Belch engages in a classic cover of the ABCs all burped to melody. You and Vic somehow wind up playing leapfrog around the circle of chairs. Midnight rolls around, well past your curfew, but you’d made Richie promise to cover for you if you do the dishes for him this week. Sleepover at Casey Frye’s house or something fake like that. The window is really becoming a go-to entry point to your house.

All the while, it’s Patrick who’s mellow, never getting up again, accepting a perfectly cooked marshmallow but not saying much. It’s not unlike him to be the least animated. Perhaps it’s you reading into things more than need be, but he looks more pensive than careless this time around. Everyone sort of walks on eggshells around him the rest of the night. He doesn’t notice.

The alcohol loses its buzz for the boys in due time, Henry and Vic and Belch all petering out within the same half hour. Your own good mood is swallowed up with exhaustion then as well. In theory, you could let yourself fall asleep right here and it would be no trouble, but a warm bed sounds too good to resist. There’s also the matter of Patrick’s accommodations. Vic’s sisters are terrified of him, Belch’s parents can’t stand him, and Butch would probably call Henry a faggot for having a boy stay overnight, God forbid males be friends. With your parents oblivious and Richie reluctantly accepting, the Tozier house is his only option, provided you can get him and yourself in quietly. No problem.

Except for the huge, hulking problem of what happened the last time the two of you left the fire together. You’ll have to hope for the best, prepare for the worst, the usual schtick when it involves him.

Belch and Henry have delved into a slurred rendition of some twangy country tune with lyrics that are barely comprehensible, something about truckin’ and fuckin’. _What else?_ Patrick’s still in his chair, curled up like a cat now. You try, sitting in the grass, to wave and catch his attention without disturbing Vic, passed out with his head in your lap. He nods in acknowledgement.

”I’m gonna head home.” You resist the caring nature that tries to manipulate the words more towards _come with me so I know you’re not off doing stupid shit and going missing, won’t you please?_ “The floor’s yours if you wanna have it.”

”I know.” Of course he knows.

Some effort is required to shift sideways in such a way that Vic isn’t bothered, but you manage. He only grumbles a little. Realistically, the grass is probably a better pillow than your legs, but he gets very sweet and affectionate by this point in the night. That’s got a lot to do with the type of closeness you two share; Vic’s not quite as emotionally stunted as the rest of the boys, as most boys this age. It’s nice to be able to hug someone for a reason aside from holding them back from a fight.

When Patrick watches you get up and give goodbye pats to Henry and Belch’s sweaty heads — the two of them never stuttering over their singsong, only offering limp waves — you assume Patrick’s going to find elsewhere to sleep. Better for your potential safety or whatever, sure, but there’s a twinge of rejection echoing around the hollows of your chest, until you’re walking away to the sidewalk and the ground behind you rustles. He must have reviewed his options and come to a conclusion to match your own. Sure enough, he pulls up next to you beneath the first streetlight along the way. 

It’s quiet for most of the walk. A welcome quiet, not like it was last time when it’d been punctuated by crying. The sway of Patrick’s shadow on the pavement says he’s tipsy, also not unlike last time, but the set of his shoulders is loose and open instead of drawn and ready to spring. 

_This is gonna be fine,_ you think. You believe it too. _He’s not like he was_.

No, but he’s thinking about having been like that, drawn to your attention by what he says eventually. “Wasn’t so peaceful the last time we took this walk.”

Those words in his usual way of speaking would be a threat of sorts. They don’t seem to be now. He’s just stating the obvious, being candid. No harm in doing the same.

”No,” you concede. “You scared me pretty bad.”

”Didn't care.”

”Yeah, I got that.” Turning to face him, you stop. “You didn’t care about much.” The past tense out of his mouth gives you a strange thrill. It feels precarious, so you don’t address it outright, only use the same word yourself. Didn’t.

He stops in tandem. It doesn’t look like he’s got anything more to say. He’s waiting. That way of reading people that he has — not very helpful in dampening down his god complex — must be telling him you’ve got more on your mind, or maybe it’s just that obvious.

”You knew what you were doing,” you half-ask, awaiting his curt nod. “You knew how I...” _How I feel about you_ is too much. Too close to the chest. _Play your cards right,_ that reasonable voice whispers. “You knew what it’d do to me. Did that make you wanna do it, just cuz you knew it would hurt?”

This is outside of protocol. In a lifetime of neighbouring and three years of a peculiar kind of friendship, you know better than to look for a reason as to why he does things. He just does.

”I don’t know,” he says. It’s honest.

There isn’t anywhere further for the issue to be pushed. You’re raring to go, though, full of curiosity and now excitement at the response not being as harsh as possible. Feeling bold. For the sake of keeping it light, you resume walking together, a few minutes from home.

The laces of the shoes Patrick borrowed at Henry’s are untied; they slap the ground, making a steady background soundtrack to the question you aren’t sure how to phrase. Eloquence is hard to come by at this hour.

”Would you do it again?” you ask.

“Which part?”

Hurting you or _the other part_, is what he means. The word is impossible even to think. You don’t dare say it aloud. “Either one.”

In the silence that follows, the two of you reaching the lawn and then the tree, scaling to the window and touching softly down in the dim light of your bedroom, a thought occurs. _He’s as confused as I am. He can notice the difference, too, he has to. Like he said when he was talking about being afraid — he doesn’t even know what that would feel like, or didn’t until not very long ago. Whatever he’s thinking must be real new to him, whatever he’s feeling, because he_ is _feeling. I think I can be sure of that. Even if it’s not much_.

He stays mute for the better part of ten minutes in the wake of the question. You get a nod for offering him a blanket to have on the floor a shrug when you ask if he’s comfy enough. Now he’s in Henry’s clothes, not a perfect fit but not as bad as Richie’s were, but jeans can’t be cozy to try and sleep in; it crosses your mind to tell him he can strip so long as he stays under the blanket. The mere idea makes your cheeks flush hot. It never leaves your mouth.

Once both of you are settled, him having lain facedown until you finished changing into pyjamas, the light is flicked off. Your thoughts aren’t even occupied with the past conversation anymore. The same can’t be said for Patrick. You must be right in assuming he’s got a lot to process if it takes this long to ponder over one hypothetical question.

”I would,” he says into the dark, continuing on to answer the unspoken _would what?_ “I would do either. I would hurt you again or kiss you again, I think. But not together the way I did it.”

Kiss. There’s the word you hadn’t been able to think. Probably by now it shouldn’t feel too grown-up. Patrick’s older than you, but not immensely so, sixteen to your fourteen-in-a-week. It’s felt like a bigger gap since you’ve known him, more since joining the gang because they’ve treated you, albeit fondly, like more of a kid. At least, they did. The June bonfire was something of a pivotal point in that respect. In the time between then and now, you realize you’ve grown up a bit, starting with the clothes and solidifying mentally at the same rate. You do feel older. Not too old for your age, for the first time.

_Isn’t it funny? I’ve had to do some serious shit these days, but I felt more out of place imagining a kiss when I was ten than I did when I was learning about the real meaning of evil today_.

Kiss. There you go. Not so hard to say in your head. Still won’t roll off your tongue. 

You're tired, trying to understand what vague insight he’s allowing. “Not the way you did. Not both at once?”

”I don’t get what’s going on with me,” he says. “It’s different. I’d still hurt you. Not like that, though, more like I was gonna do to Henry tonight.”

Maybe you’re deducing what you want to hear, or maybe it’s that instinct. Maybe you just know Patrick well. What clarity he’s offering is minor at the surface. Still, you’re accosted by sudden certainty that he means what you want him to mean. Whatever psychological conflict he’s having go on, there’s a piece of him — likely the bigger one — that’s as blank and _wrong_ as ever. He would still hurt you. Small though it must be, there’s also a piece that’s new. The piece you’ve noticed show itself all day in his unfamiliar mannerisms, his voice and its uncertain waver, his reactions.

Yes, he’s saying, he’d hurt you, maybe slap you around if the situation called for it, same as always. But not in the deep-cut way he did by tugging at your heartstrings with a kiss only meant to highlight the fact that he couldn’t reciprocate the pure, soft way you feel for him. 

_Didn't_, he’d said during the walk. Now you mouth the words to yourself, soundless, on the brink of deep sleep. Didn’t. Couldn’t. 

⚘⚘⚘

Mr. and Mrs. Hockstetter’s impromptu takeoff comes to last longer than expected. You’re fine with it, content to host a slowly evolving Patrick in your room when you aren’t out with him and the guys, sneaking extra plates of dinner up to him each night. The unfortunate thing is that you start to get cocky. It’s a hundred percent on you for losing your surreptitiousness with the food and allowing him to roam the house while your parents are at work. When it does come crashing down, though, it’s more directly his fault.

It’s been six days. You’re one night away from the start of school and two from your birthday, blow-drying your hair as the clock ticks past ten at night. Patrick is, to the best of your knowledge, chilling out in your closet as he’s supposed to do in the window between Mom and Daddy getting home from work and going to bed. Idly, you wonder if he’s reading the crime thriller you’d lent him in there. He likes to read. It’s another new thing. Two months of boredom caught up to him, he justifies it. Sure.

It’s a decent night. You’re in a decent mood. The guys will come around tomorrow morning at eight-thirty sharp in the car, all of you headed to Derry High now, the reminder giving you a little burst of excitement. You head back to the bedroom once the dryer cools down. Last step for back-to-school: lay out your outfit, even if it’s bound to give your unorthodox roommate fuel to make fun of you.

When the door swings open, you initially don’t register that your mom is sitting on the bed. From there it’s a chain reaction of oh-hey-Mom to wait-no to oh-shit. You shut the door behind you, unthinking, and gawk.

Patrick’s on the beanbag. He likes it there. So much, it would appear, that he couldn’t stay off of it in your absence. He gives you a stare so clear it may as well speak out loud. _Busted_.

“I knew he must either be found or dead,” Mom says, dangerously calm. “The police found all the other victims, you know, but I didn’t see his name in the paper as an identified one, or his parents back in town. I know about him and your other friends, so it made sense that you’ve been out even more this week, and I’m happy you’re happy, honey.”

_She knew about my friends_. It doesn’t shock you all that much. She’s always been able to read you like a book, so of course she hasn’t been oblivious for years. She’s hidden it well, though, probably for the sake of keeping Daddy out of the loop, and you’re pained with gratitude in stark contrast to the panic you’re otherwise feeling.

”But he can’t stay here,” she concludes. “I love you, [Y/N], but I don’t trust him more than I ever have, and don’t think I don’t notice that he’s the only missing child to come back home. I’ll do my best to get ahold of your parents, Patrick, and in the meantime you can come here for meals if you’d like to. I’ll have to talk it over with my husband. He doesn’t have to know about this whole situation, but I’m sure he won’t mind feeding you for awhile. You will just have to find another place to stay at night.”

The allusion to having to tell Daddy who your friends are makes you cringe. That aside, there’s one pressing matter.

”Mom, what about tonight? It’s late. Can’t he stay?”

She raises an eyebrow. Glances between the two of you. Patrick is trying to look innocent, the exaggerated wide eyes and primly clasped hands almost making you burst into laughter. This is serious — if Daddy finds out you’ve had a boy up here, let alone that it’s this boy in particular, he’ll hate you. You’re sure of it. It’ll be hard enough to get him to forgive that your friends are the goddamn Bowers gang. Pushing your luck is an unnecessary risk. 

Interrupting that anxious train of thought, Mom says “No.”

Patrick’s face falls. You’re intrigued to the point of distraction, not having known that it could do that. You nearly miss what comes next.

She stands up and moves past you, hand on the doorknob. “In fact,” she continues. “I’m upset, honey. I don’t even want to see you. I’m going to go join your father and get some sleep, so you’d just better show your guest  out.”

_Is this wishful thinking or is she trying to let me keep him here for one last night?_ The silent question is answered by a pointed nod. Obviously, she won’t approve of Patrick staying in here again, but she’s doing a massive favour by turning a blind eye to it.

You hug her before you know that you’re going to.

“Sorry,” you mumble into her shoulder, then, “thank you.”

“Nothing to thank me for.” She presses a brief kiss to your forehead. Turning to leave, pointedly averting her sight from Patrick, she nods again, a final wordless _you do what you need to do and I don’t know a thing about it,_ and goes.

Surreal. That’s the appropriate word.

_I guess I forgot she’s almost my friend as much as my mother,_ you think. _With the way the evil made her act all summer, I forgot she’s always been good to me like this. It coulda saved a lot of sneaking around her if I’d come out about the boys being my friends_. The only bad part would’ve been her need to be honest with Daddy if he’d ever happened to ask. For the same reason, Mom just told you Patrick has to leave. Protecting herself in case somehow Daddy caught him here tonight. Well. You’ve got to have inherited your cunning from somewhere.

Patrick looks conflicted. “Was I imagining that or is she letting me stay?”

On impulse, you throw the nearest object, a slipper, and it smacks him in the face. “How did you let her find you? You seriously couldn’t stay in the closet until I got back?”

He throws the slipper back. “She knew anyways. I heard her ask Trashmouth this morning if he’d noticed you taking extra dinner this week.”

Richie’s no snitch. For her to have asked, though, means she already had a pretty good idea.

You throw your hands up in the air. “Fine! It doesn’t even matter. The point is that you don’t have anywhere to go.”

He regards you, brows furrowed. “I can just go to my house.”

_No fucking way_.

“No,” you say slowly. “You can’t get into your house. That’s why you’ve been staying here.”

”No,” he parrots. “There’s a spare key under the flowerpot on the back step. I stay here because I want to.”

It takes every ounce of strength in your body not to throw something more damaging. A rock would be nice if one were lying around. The worry of making too loud a noise stops you, so you settle for hustling over and grabbing the book from his lap to smack him upside the head. This might have been a no-go around Past Patrick; now he only smirks, unbothered.

”I cannot fucking believe this.” You totally can. “I can’t. This could get me in so much shit and you’re telling me you could’ve just gone _home?_”

”Still would’ve gone hungry,” he counters. “And I like the beanbag.”

Exasperated to no end, you sigh. “I fucking know.”

Whether it’s frustrating to you or not, there’s a silver lining to be found in the spark of amusement on the edge of that shit-eating grub. It’d probably be silly to spend your last ‘sleepover’ pissed off, as much as he deserves it.

_How fucking ridiculous is it that he loves the beanbag more than his own entire house?_

Really ridiculous. So ridiculous it makes you laugh. And laugh, and laugh, and laugh. There’s a pound on the other side of the wall and a faint “Shut up!” from Richie’s room, which only makes you laugh harder.

Patrick doesn’t join in — not there yet — but he looks undeniably pleased with himself. It’s not much, but it’s something. Good enough for now.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im adding slow burn to the tags because i just realized 40k words to get to any kind of vague romance is .............. Substantial

Weighted quiet hangs in the living room’s air. The confession, so rushed to leave your mouth, has led to at least two full minutes of wordless staring between you and your father. Stood across the living room from his recliner, bouncing on your toes, you try to offer a smile. It goes unappreciated.

”Henry Bowers,” he says finally, chin resting in his hand as he tests the name out on his tongue. “My little girl’s best friend is Henry Bowers.”

”Well,” you try, “my  best friend, that’s more like Vic Criss, you know, with the mom who runs the food bank at church. There’s Henry plus him, and Belch Huggins, and Patrick. From next door.” That last part comes out close to a mumble. The wide-eyed reaction it invokes makes you want to hide.

Daddy’s rubbing his temples like he’s got one hell of a headache. “Patrick from next door, huh?”

”Yes, Daddy.”

”What—“ He starts, stops, starts, stops, hard-pressed to come up with whatever words to articulate himself. “Why did you decide to tell me this today, [Y/N], if you’ve been pleased as punch to lie about it for so very long?”

This isn’t a deliberate family meeting; Mom’s in the kitchen to make dinner and avoid being involved, but Richie just so happened to be on the couch with a comic book when you grew the balls to get this out in the open, so he’s been sat rather uncomfortably in on the conversation. At your father’s growing anger, he apparently decides to use his favourite-child status to your benefit.

”She didn’t, like,  _lie_ lie,” he points out. Daddy turns those incredulous eyes on him, and you catch your brother’s wince, but he keeps going. “She just didn’t tell you. Dad, they’re not such bad dudes if they’ve been hanging with her since she was a kid and she’s always come home in one piece. Plus, I haven’t gotten shoved into a locker in three years cuz they’re getting bossed around by her.”

All true. You shuffle a few steps closer to your father, hopeful.

He sighs. “I don’t like it either way, [Y/N], but I don’t suppose that Richie’s all wrong.”

”He’s not,” you insist, shaking your head wildly. “Daddy, they’re good to me and then they’re good to Richie and his friends for me, and I don’t mind not having girlfriends, promise.”

”I mind.” That’s not news, but it does still sting. “Dear, I just don’t like it. A girl your age should have friends to do... girl things with. It worries me that you don’t.”

Now you’re getting frustrated. Mom is boiling water, you can hear it bubbling, and a brief, morbid mental image of sticking your head in its scalding pot appears.  _Okay, woah_, the rational piece of your brain cautions.  _If I have a hissy fit now, the whole thing will be over. Giving him an attitude just means he can send me to my room and pretend nothing happened. And I haven’t even had the chance to ask for what I actually need to ask for._

”I go shopping with Mom and I do my makeup and I dress as nice as I’d like to,” you say, soft but serious. “I do all the things you think girls should do just fine on my own, Daddy. I like it that way. I like the friends I have. You wouldn’t mind them so much if you knew them, I don’t think.”

An ugly defiance is making itself known on his face, and you discover with dismay that this has been a losing battle from the very start. You’ve never stood a chance up against the perfect daughter that Wentworth Tozier wants to have. Richie can tell, too, if the way he slumps backwards is any indication. Tears tickle the corners of your eyes. 

Sneaking around to have any fun sucks. The only good you’d expected to come from admitting to all of this was having everything out in the open, and the possibility of being able to help Patrick out. Now you won’t be surprised if you get grounded from seeing the whole gang, and then it’ll go right back to the way it was in the beginning, with you always looking over your shoulder to make sure nobody who’d tell your parents was around.

Your father’s mouth opens, surely to say something soul-crushing. You brace yourself. It’s gonna fucking suck to tell Patrick that he’ll have to figure out his own eating situation, and the fact that, knowing him, he’ll probably end up stealing or, like, fucking eating roadkill? That just makes you more upset.

At the absolute last possible second, Mom sticks her head through the doorway from the kitchen. All three heads in the living room swivel to fix on her. 

“By the way, Went, darling, I forgot to tell you,” she says sweetly, “our neighbour boy’s parents are out of town. Indefinitely. So I thought we might have him over for dinner for awhile. It was the first day of school today, you know, I’m sure he could use a home-cooked meal.”

She ducks back out without waiting to be questioned. Daddy opens and closes his mouth, fishlike, eyes darting from you to the doorway, and you’re both speechless, processing at the same rate.  _Neighbour boy,_ she’d said, obviously meaning Patrick, leaving no opportunity for argument, because she’s been listening to the course of conversation and come to the same understanding about where it’d been headed. In short, she just saved your ass. It’s not lost on your father, who’s gritting his teeth and eyeing you up knowingly. You put the final nail in the coffin. 

“That’ll be nice,” you say with renewed confidence. “Patrick was one of the missing kids and now nobody can find his mom and dad. I’m real happy we can help him out. It’s great that he can be around for my birthday tomorrow, too, Daddy.”

Richie regards you, mouth agape. He’s just been replaced as the master of getting his way. Buzzing with pride, you dart towards the front door before any more arguments can be made, on your way to tell Patrick he can come over.

⚘⚘⚘

Family dinners plus one are hard to navigate in the start. The very first one is completely silent aside from chewing and plate-scraping. You’re grateful that it happens with any level of success, and that you’re still allowed to come and go as you please even now that it’s public knowledge who you're out with. Although, immediately after your birthday, your dad does insist on ignoring you more often than not at home to highlight his disappointment, a taciturn punishment. If it’s the alternate route to being grounded, you can’t complain. 

School goes well — you’re happy to all be going to Derry High together, and it means you can reinstate your role in the group as their eyes and ears to anybody who might need to be put in their place. Everybody knows not to bother you from the first day onwards. You’re perfecting a personalized resting bitch face to rival Henry’s, and the four ill-reputed escorts that hang around your locker and sometimes take you to classes ward off trouble. Once, you explain that to Mom in response to her worries about you and Richie being picked on for your obviously thrifted wardrobes. She’s appreciative, but she grumbles something along the lines of “How’s my only daughter going to get any dates if she’s surrounded by guard dogs?”

”She’s not allowed to date til she’s thirty,” Richie reminds her, a mimic of something your father used to say, an attempt to get him involved in the chatter. Daddy doesn’t bite. He flips to another page in the newspaper, pretending you don’t exist. The usual.

Autumn and its chill, its red leaves and thunderstorms, comes and goes. As predicted, no boy dares approach you. You’re not high enough on yourself to believe you’d have suitors lined up if not for the crowd at your lunch table, but there _is_ a boy often caught staring from across your English classroom. He’s sort of cute. Leo or Luke or some variant of a similar L-name. Dark, shaggy hair, high cheekbones, lanky. The irony of him being almost exactly your type isn’t lost on you. Still, you never care to stare back. His eyes are shiny chocolate brown, and that’s not quite right. Maybe if they were closer to blue.

Though he’s been steadily changing for months now, Patrick’s differences day to day are so minuscule that they escape your notice most of the time. It’s easy to take for granted. There are a shit ton of things that he still does, typical of him in the past; getting under anybody’s skin to pick a fight at every turn, coming up with deep-cut insults when he gets in a bad mood, generally doing whatever he wants without much mind paid to how it might affect anyone else. You’ve found all of that to be a little different than it once was, though. It seems more habitual than on purpose. Best of all, he’s abandoned the fridge in the woods (to the best of your knowledge) and downgraded back to tearing the wings off of flies. Baby steps.

Some days are harder than others. He’s overwhelmed a lot of the time, you’re pretty sure, and because he’s with you more than he’s with anyone else — still eating dinners at your place, leaving through the door and then coming back in later through the window to hang out — you get the brunt of it. It’s all you can do to remember that with Patrick, bad moods are an improvement on no moods whatsoever.

It takes until early spring for you to understand exactly how much his mindset, his emotional capability, has shifted beyond just making him more outburst-prone.

Since last summer, your mom has done her best to track down Mr. and Mrs. Hockstetter, scouring through phonebooks and calling everyone with the same surname to see if they’d left to stay with a relative. She’d started local, moved on to the rest of the state, and eventually tried a few numbers outside of Maine. No dice. They’re in the wind. Twice a month or so, usually over Saturday casserole, she’ll update Patrick on the latest failures, always with a sympathetic smile and a “But I think I might be able to find someone else that they could be staying with!” He's rarely responsive. You assume it doesn’t make a difference to him — he’s unbothered alone in his house, being fed at yours, and scavenging Goodwill and K-Mart for clothes with his saved cash. He doesn’t strictly _need_ his parents. 

But he says, one Sunday morning on the way to the clearing to hang out, walking through the dewy grass in step with you, “Kinda wish they’d just come back.”

You’re distracted. At first, it doesn’t register who ‘they’ are, and you shake your head, confused. The puzzle pieces click together with a few seconds’ lag. He means his mom and dad, though they haven’t come up in any recent conversation, so you’re unsure as to why they’re crossing his mind now. 

“Why?” You shuffle through the greenery without looking up. “Run out of cash?”

It’s a joke. A month ago, he’d have laughed, which is why you said it. His laugh is your favourite new development, always pitchy and rough from disuse but so much nicer than the snickers you’d only heard from him before the events of the summer. This joke doesn’t bring the laugh out.

”Shut up,” he says instead. You just about fall over and die of shock.

That’s _hurt_. That’s hurt in his voice. _I’m not imagining it, am I? He’s hurt that I said he must only want his parents back for the money._ The shock turns to delight that you barely manage to contain. It’s iffy, but you have to push it and make sure you’re not wrong here.

”Why, then?”

You've come to recognize when Patrick’s ignoring you versus when he’s deep into his own head trying to figure it what he’s feeling, how it’s making him think, what he wants to do about it. Sneaking a glance over shows him fixated on the ground ahead with concentration. It’s the latter.

Eventually, he groans, raising his head back up. The clearing is in sight now. Inside the pockets of your borrowed hoodie, you cross your fingers that he hurried up and says what he wants to say while it’s the two of you alone, because he’ll never do it with the guys breathing down his neck. Thankfully, some higher power is on your side.

”I don’t get why they’re still gone,” he says. When he’s like this, the words always come slow and uncertain. It reminds you each time how it has to be even more wild for him to experience these things for the first times than for you to observe. “I mean, they know what I am, but it’s never made them leave, not in sixteen years. I guess they skipped town cuz they didn’t wanna have to be here if I came back. The house is quiet with just me, ‘s’all.” 

The amount of restraint it takes not to throw your arms around him is immense. The hurt is more pronounced here, painfully alike to a little kid who doesn’t understand what they’ve done to get into trouble. You know that he does understand what he’s done, but it’s important to note the disconnect between the Patrick who suffocated his baby brother and the Patrick learning to be human, the Patrick trudging alongside you who’d lent you his sweater earlier on the journey without being asked.

”Were,” you correct. Henry’s voice is within earshot, putting the ‘deep’ part of the talk to a stop, though Patrick gives a quizzical look as you step into the open green space. Uncertain if he’ll hear, you finish softly, “They knew what you were, not what you’re turning into now, Patrick.”

He scoffs, rolls his eyes, fucks off across the clearing to throw rocks at Vic for fun, but you catch the barest hint of a blush rise above the collar of his shirt. If it immediately becomes your life’s mission to see that blush in full force, that’s nobody's business but your own.

⚘⚘⚘

Patrick turns seventeen, early June, marking the start of real hot weather and some summer shenanigans. You’re the one to make his birthday cake, too prideful to buy one from the grocery store and too broke to order a bakery-made one. He requests carrot, which every single person in the group and in your family hates, and he insists it be full-sized. Your dad has warmed up or at least thawed out towards the constant houseguest (probably due to the fact that he’s started to help out with dishes, something Richie has yet to bother involving himself in) but he does draw the line at a birthday party being held at the Tozier home for ‘a bunch of delinquents’, so back to the bonfire it will be.

Henry’s backyard is kind of symbolic, you feel. The two pivotal points in the weird not-quite-friendly part of your relationship with Patrick have happened after leaving there. So maybe it’s the walk home that’s symbolic, whatever. Either way, you find yourself plagued by some kind of nervous anticipation in the week preceding the birthday, like something’s bound to go down.

_First it was degrading me and then kissing me to hurt my feelings, and the next time it was him telling me he’d be willing to do either one of those things again. What’s the next step? Marriage? Yeah, that’s real funny_. 

Vic’s on the same train of thought. On Tuesday afternoon, three days before the party, he makes a point to meet you at your locker to walk out and hitch the Trans Am home.

”So.” He watches you sort through textbooks to put away or take home, lips pursed. “You know how you’re in love with Hockstetter.”

”I’m familiar with the concept.” You hope it’s obvious that the slam of your locker is purposeful and directed at him. Nobody in the hall is paying attention, but still, it’s the only real secret you have, would it kill him to wait for a more private moment?

Apparently reading your mind, he goes on. “I wanted to talk about this one-on-one, but you’re so damn busy coddling him all the time, I never get the chance.”

”Vic, it’s hard for him, you know, he’s—“

“_Changing_, I get it, fuck off. All I want to know is if you’re so sure he’s better now that you’re gonna make a move or some shit like that.”

_Make a move? Do I look like I would ever put myself into a position to get rejected, Victor, you fucking idiot? When I could just pine for the rest of my life instead? Absolutely not_. 

“No,” you snap. “I’m not trying to get my feelings hurt. You don’t have to treat me like I’m stupid all the way around just because I can’t get over one stupid crush, alright?”

Vic holds the door for you to go outside, mouth open, trying to come up with an answer. When the sun hits your face, you sneeze, some weird light sensitivity thing that he usually makes fun of you for, but he’s being serious. He’s been perceptive throughout the year, maybe more so than you have.

”Well.” He pauses to flip off Belch, who’s parked down the street and honking obnoxiously. “I know you’re not stupid, okay, [Y/N]? I just want you to be careful if anything happens with Hockstetter. You’re a good kid. And my best friend, whatever.”

The agitation evaporates. _Fine. He’s just looking out for me._ You shove him, playful, and hold back a grin. “Yeah, fine. Not a kid.” _God, what would I do without him? Probably crash and burn_.

At risk of being too soft, the two of you reach the car and Vic gets in one final dig to keep you on your toes. “Love ya. Wouldn’t want to find you dead in a fridge in the forest.”

The car door just so happens to swing closed behind you and almost pinch his fingers, earning a yelp. Funny coincidence.

Once it’s been acknowledged aloud, the thought of something happening between you and Patrick makes a home in your head and refuses to leave during the rest of the week. You’re teetering on a cliff’s edge. At lunch, you can’t help but to sneak looks at him, and it gets harder to pass off as an accident or just spacing out by the time he’s caught you more than twice in a day. That face stays stoic and unreadable, not offering any hint to how he feels about your states, assuming he feels any way about them.

_He knows_. You’re suddenly sure of it. _There’s no way he doesn’t. Fuck, his first night back from living in a torture chamber, I asked him if he wanted to kiss me! He knew about it when he did kiss me, for sure, cuz he said he did that to hurt me, so he has to know I still like him, right? Fuck. Being alive is so embarrassing._

Yeah, it’s real embarrassing. So embarrassing that you just go right back to looking at him.

Friday rolls around, the first morning in a few weeks that Patrick doesn’t come through the window to greet you. He’d decided first period phys ed is less important than “getting that birthday beauty sleep, Tozier, do you think I want to roll into year seventeen with these nasty fuckin’ bags under my eyes?” (As a rule, you avoid wondering how little sleep he does get because it stresses you out, but the bags are out of control. A few hours of naps through the entire week is a reasonable guess.) Better, you decide, because you want to dress nice today, and it’s a fine change not to have a teenage boy lazing around your room and judging your clothing choices at seven-thirty each morning. No particular reason you want to get prettied up, you’re just in the mood—

_Give it up,_ commands your conscience. _I’m gonna wear the shit that Patrick likes because Patrick likes it and I’ve got it in my head that I had better look good to him today_.

The Tozier stubbornness runs thick in your blood. You’re defiant even to yourself, deliberately sifting past the black denim skirt he’d given a half-compliment once, because you’ll admit that you want him to think you look good, but you’re not gonna do it _just_ for him. No thanks. You’re gonna like what you wear. You’ve come far enough this year from feeling like you had to wear whatever your father liked. 

On that note, a pale yellow sundress draws your attention, hanging forgotten in a far corner of the closet. A flashback plays: hadn't you been planning to wear this the day that Patrick went missing?

_Yeah, and then he went ahead and made me feel gross about being a daddy’s girl, and then he made some dirty joke about me to Richie, and then he jumped out the window. Fun times with Psycho Pat_.

It’s a cute dress. Feeling out the soft cotton, you hum, appreciative. You’d left it behind that day to make a point that you weren’t as weak to your father’s wants as Patrick thought. Girly it may be, but not a lot more than most of your chosen wardrobe nowadays, having figured out that you like those kinds of things; you’d only hated them when they’d been forced on you. You’ve grown almost completely into your body, too, so it’ll be shorter than intended, but not by much. Toziers don’t get very tall.

Yes, you confirm once it’s on, resisting the urge to do a little twirl in front of the mirror. Cute.

Hopefully a certain someone will agree.

”Going somewhere special?” Richie cakes cluelessness, watching you pour yourself some orange juice. “Job application? At the gentlemen’s club?”

In deadly silence, you come up next to him, moving as though you’re about to whisper a secret into his ear. When he’s off guard, you pour the juice into his Lucky Charms.

”_No!_”

”Don’t call your sister a stripper, then, Richard,” Mom says over her coffee cup.

It doesn’t end up only being him, of course — going out to meet the guys for the drive to school leads to a chorus of half-joking wolf whistles, an are-you-for-real look from Vic, wandering eyes from Henry. From Belch, too, actually. You catch him glancing further down than necessary in his rearview mirror. Comes with the territory of having wrapped up the last stretch of puberty, you suppose.

⚘⚘⚘

You no longer like ‘the territory’.

Beyond the gang, the dress doesn’t go unnoticed, or at least your recently formed figure doesn’t. You’d never had to understand the ‘my eyes are up here’ thing until today. It’s not even noon yet.

A few comments and catcalls come in the halls between morning classes, and those aren so bad. Your reputation still precedes you. Sure, it’d decimate anyone daring to ogle if Henry or Belch were walking you around, and you’d thought of asking, but they’re busy, and it’s a well enough known thing that you’re not to be fucked with. So. It could be worse, is the gist of it. Ogling aside, you’re still given plenty of space until English class.

Maybe it’s fate — your admirer looks so much like Patrick, it makes sense he’d have as much lack of social reservation. He fixates on you for the full hour-and-a-half class. Usually, you’re content to feel his gaze flick over to you three or four times a day, flattered even, but it’s not a flick today. Just a lewd stare that makes the hair on your nape stand up straight. If memory serves, his name is Lucas, and you’re on the fence about calling him out. Enough attention is drawn your way from the dress alone, though, so you grit your teeth and bear it. _Finish the class and then I don’t have to see him again til Monday. Hopefully I can find a HAZMAT suit to cover up with by then_.

Unfortunately, the universe is in the mood to screw you over, and Lucas’ creepy watch doesn’t cease with the ringing of the lunch bell. He waits by the door seemingly just to brush against your arm on the way out. It makes your skin crawl, but you’re grateful that he disappears afterwards, leaving you to handle your locker. You don’t see him while you stand in the cafeteria line to buy Patrick’s favourite dark chocolate cookie (you brought a big 7 candle from home, unable to find a 1, but it’s the thought that counts). There’s a solid five minutes at the gang’s table where you can forget the dude exists.

”Happy birthday to you,” you sing, stabbing the candle into the cookie and sliding it across the table to the man of the hour. Patrick looks at you, a quick once-over of the outfit and all that, eyes lingering on the gloss of your lower lip and making you antsy. Then he looks down at the cookie with a mixture of... well, it’s always hard to put a name to his expressions. This one is equal parts ‘wow’ and ‘are you fucking kidding’.

Cheering, Belch leans over with his Zippo to light the wick. It’s only aflame for a second before the lunchroom monitor starts to hurry over and you blow it out in a panic, uninterested in getting a lecture about fire hazards. Everyone groans in disappointment.

”I didn’t get to make a wish,” he says, mocking disappointment.

”I made one for you,” you assure him. “You know I got your best interests at heart.”

He grunts and busies himself gnawing on the cookie. At least that’s not a disappointment. It’s endearing to watch him do _anything_ by now with how smitten you are, so it’s a real effort to look away, to focus back on your own lunch. Turkey sandwiches have nothing on Patrick Hockstetter. 

Henry has a new conquest, some junior girl who works at the gas station downtown, Katie or Kyra or something. She’s the only topic he can be assed to talk about lately. As you’ve learned to do since the boys have gotten more comfortable about this kind of stuff with you, you tune out around when he starts to wax poetic about how her tits look in her uniform. It seems like you’re the only one to care much for Patrick’s big day. He doesn’t mind, of course, even shooting you a small smile the next time your eyes meet, not laced with slyness as usual. That genuine smile has been competing with his laugh for the number one favourite thing about him. It’s an exhaustive list, so rankings are important.

The group quiets down shortly. Everybody’s eating except for Vic, who consistently forgets to pack food and refuses to spend money on ‘school slop’. You’re relaxed and you’ve got no reason not to be, so it’s that much more offputting when Lucas swaggers up to the table, ignoring everyone but you, oily hair shining under the fluorescent lights.

”Tozier,” he says, words dripping with sleaze. Five sets of eyes turn on him with no shortage of distaste. You nod, because that sure is your name. “Looking good. I was thinkin’ you should come with me to Bangor tonight. Big college party, cool shit, you’re a cool girl. Whaddaya say?”

Your brain lags to catch up with all this input. _Boy I’ve never spoken to. Gawked at me for an entire class earlier. Asking me out. To a college party. In the big city. Hey, quick question, what the fuck is going on here?_

”Who the fuck are you?” Henry speaks for you.

Lucas isn’t concerned. “I wasn’t talking to you,” he chuckles. “[Y/N] can speak for herself, I bet. Can’t you?”

You've gained your footing now, scowling up at him. He’s talking to you like you’re a dog. “Yeah, I can. I’m gonna go with ‘no’.”

”Aw, don’t be like that.” He has the audacity to plop down on the unoccupied edge of the bench seat next to you, and you almost retch at the sight of him reaching up to brush a loose strand of hair behind your ear. How did you ever think he was cute? He’s like a dollar store incarnation of Patrick, greasy, littered with acne, crooked teeth to fill the gross smile directed your way. “Can’t come to school all dressed up with everything on display and then turn a guy down. That’s just rude.”

”Get your hand off of me,” you hiss through your teeth. It falls on deaf ears.

”If you don’t take your hand off her I’ll make sure she’s the last thing you ever touch,” a calm, cold voice interrupts.

You’re a bit surprised that it comes from Patrick. Henry and Vic are traditionally the ones to snarl at any catcallers or the likes, and once even Richie at the arcade last month, but it’s never been Patrick's job. He looks levelly up at Lucas. Suddenly you’re uneasy on his account rather than the uninvited guest’s. It’s been awhile since you’ve seen his face go blank like that. You haven’t missed it.

”Like you’ll do shit,” Lucas says. The hand doesn’t move. Actually, he grabs at your hair when you try to twist away. “I’ve seen you guys. The whole town has. You got this girl running with you and none of you are even tapping that, what the fuck is that about? Are you a bunch of faggots?”

In the split second following this dude’s colossal mistake, you notice that he’s not in any memory you have of elementary or middle school, which means he’s new in town this year. He must not have caught the memo about the Bowers gang. _Oh well. Now he’ll know_.

On your left, Vic reaches around to tear the hand away from you, somehow avoiding ripping any hair out in the process, and you watch as his nails dig deep enough into Lucas’ wrist to draw blood. Henry’s face is lobster-red. His shoulders tense up; in your mind’s eye, you can see him smashing Lucas headfirst into the table until his face is mangled. A mad panic overtakes you. If the whole group gets detention for fighting on school property, the bonfire will be a no-go.

”Later,” you command. Other instances have called for you postponing them, but it’s rare to have to ask more than once to dampen down the rage in the atmosphere. “Henry, look at me. Not at school. You can wait.”

He weighs his options. It’s a stressful half-minute. Lucas, perhaps understanding what he’s gotten into, snarls a few cusses and takes the opportunity to slink off and disappear into the fray of other lunch tables. You keep your focus on Henry all the while. In time, he settles back down, mouth still set in a hard, furious line.

”He’s just some douchebag,” you say into the charged silence. “We can track him down after school and I’ll keep watch for you guys, okay? It’s gonna be fine.”

”I’ll kill him.”

Patrick breaks the spell with a nonchalant murder threat. The other three grumble agreements and return to their food, or in Vic’s case, return to carving random shapes into the table out of boredom. Something about the serious tone rubs you the wrong way. You’re content to accept the small victory of keeping the boys in check under such circumstances, but those three words bounce around in your skull for hours to follow, spoken honestly, without feeling. On the bright side, that worry keeps you preoccupied and leaves no time to ruminate on the shit that Lucas said. The way he’d run those eyes over you like you’re a slab of meat. 

He gets his payback. 

By the time the last bell goes off and you’re propped up in your middle seat, Belch has chilled out, as he’s normally the first to. Such isn’t the same for the other three. They don’t talk much as the Trans Am starts to trawl around, scouring the streets for one particular target. You know it’s serious when Mike Hanlon shows up in a side mirror and Henry doesn’t even bat an eye. It’s been a long, long while since they’ve done this, caught a scent and kept on it like bloodhounds.

Fifteen minutes pass by without anyone speaking a word. You start to fidget.

On the third circle around the dozen blocks surrounding Derry High, Belch says uncertainly, “Man, I might just call it a day and head to your place, Bowers, you know I can’t pay for any more gas this week.”

Henry turns, ready to bite Belch’s head off, it appears, and then Patrick stiffens at your side, pointing down the next alley.

”Jackpot, kiddos.”

You’d kind of hoped not to come across the guy. Not today. It’d be better to give the gang the weekend to cool down. The idiot hasn’t got a clue what he’s in for, leaning up on the brick wall of the pharmacy’s backside, smoking O-rings from the stub of what could be a joint or a cigarette. He’s spaced enough not to notice the car speeding down the alleyway at him until it damn near runs him over. You can tell he’s no tough guy in a situation like this, all the cockiness gone out of his stance.

“Feelin’ tough, big guy?” Henry screams out the window. “Wanna call me a faggot again?”

Poor Lucas doesn’t have the chance to do so much as flinch. The boys are out and on him in the same time it takes you to unbuckle your seatbelt. Not unexpectedly, it’s all downhill from there.

As a rule, you deem it your job to watch these more vendetta-based beatdowns like a referee, because these four can’t afford to lose control. You’ve come to memorize each of their roles: Henry takes on the majority of the beating itself, Belch as his right-hand man to throw a punch here and there; Vic jeers profanity and hits once in awhile; Patrick bears the cross of holding the poor asshole down to be hurt. That’s the standard.

Today is different right off the bat, and not in a way that eases your nerves.

Patrick’s in the thick of it. Straight from the get-go he’s the one to swing the first uppercut that makes Lucas’ nose snap to a horrific left angle, to stomp on his foot with the points of steel-toed boots, to slice his cheek open over the bone with those silver-ringed knuckles. He moves so fast that there’s no need for anyone to hold Lucas down. Having lost his mojo at the turn of events, Vic stands awkwardly to one side, unmoving, and Belch and Henry can hardly get a slap in edgewise. They’re struck too dumb even to hurl insults. Similarly caught off-guard, you hang half-in and half-out if the car, jaw dropped and speechless.

This goes on for a solid five minutes. Nobody knows what to do. The only noises to be heard are distant honks and rolling tires, Lucas’ helpless gasps each time a hit lands, and Patrick’s breath coming in sharp heaves as if from straining exercise. Henry and Belch have reeled back to watch it unfold with a kind of horrified interest. It’s not like they’re going to try to stop him. Unspoken, the truth hangs in the air that he’ll just as soon turn on anyone who gets in his way as he’d gone wild on his current target.

_He really is gonna kill the guy,_ you think, horribly matter-of-fact. _He said he would and he will. Look at him go_.

Lucas’ face is barely visible under all of the blood by now. Something that looks like a tooth lies on the nearby gravel, though his mouth is too swollen up to see if one is missing. And through it all, Patrick keeps right on going, now subject to panicked mutters from the other three.

”Hockstetter, he’s bleeding real bad,” Belch tries. It doesn’t seem to register.

You’re reminded of the same energy that had been rampant in Derry this same time a year ago. Chaotic, violent, unreasonable. It’s no outside force this time, just Patrick, and that makes it worse to you.

”Patrick!” That’s Vic. “Patrick, you’re gonna go too far to come back from, fuck, come on!”

_It was just like this last summer. People got real volatile and not like themselves. He _is_ being himself, though. His old self Isn’t he? More than I’ve seen him be since back then. I didn’t think he could still be heartless like this._

_Heartless_. What an ugly word. It rattles you down to your core, the idea that what he’s doing right now is a representation of what he still is, after what you’d seen as months of beautiful progress. To think that he’d given you that brand new sunshine smile only a few hours ago. You’re suddenly, profusely distraught; the ice breaks.

You hurl yourself at him. “Stop it! _Patrick, stop it, you’re killing him!_” 

He’s moving too fluidly to wrap around as you’d done when he tried to fight Henry, but that doesn’t deter you. A sickening crack accompanied the next punch. Lucas’ head whips backwards to hit the brick wall. In the next second, Patrick loosens up the tiniest bit, clear to you from behind him with the momentary lowering of his shoulders, and it’s the window of opportunity that’s needed.

”Enough.” You take a gamble on the hope that Patrick’s not so out of it as to not see you or not care, and you slip into the space between him and the vaguely person-shaped lump that he’s swinging at. For the immediate following instant, his body’s a step ahead of his brain so that you see the shift in his eyes but his fist still starts to come at you. You flinch hard. Behind Patrick, one of the boys gives a distraught moan. Behind you, finally allowed the time and space, Lucas teeters and falls to the ground.

Patrick’s last hit never lands. He stops so still that he looks as though he’s caught on photograph instead of physically present. The alley goes quiet again, punctuated by wheezes from Lucas. You can’t bring yourself to check the damage. It’s overwhelming just to be in front of Patrick while he comes down from whatever kind of awful episode this has been.

_Why does he look like that?_

With nothing short of amazement, you read the regret on his face, and it occurs to you that he’s looked like _something_ through the whole minute you've been stood here to see his face. You’d so expected that horror-movie blank stare, but he’d looked fucking enraged. The anger is only leaving his features, not gone, so you know it was really there.

”Patrick,” you say, uncertain. You don’t mean to reach up and cradle his cheek in one hand, but it happens. He’s starting to look every bit as confused as you feel. 

The lump coughs, a retchworthy gurgle in his throat. 

Henry slams the gear shift back into head-bitch-in-charge mode. “Somebody better fuckin’ think of a way to get this sorry bag of shit to see a doctor without us getting in any trouble.”

_Right, yeah. Probably a good idea_.

”We could call the cops,” Vic says. You intervene before Henry can smack him.

”No, no, Vic’s right, we have to,” you insist, “and I don’t think Lucas here is interested in telling the fuzz about who jumped him, right?” It births a pang of guilt, but you kick at the kid where he sits up against the wall, making sure he gets the picture. The unintelligible groan he lets out may not be an answer, but you’re content to take it as a yes. Nobody’s stupid enough to snitch on someone who hurt them like this for a much lesser offense. “All we have to do is figure out how to do it without you guys getting caught.”

Patrick has retreated to sit on the hood of the car with clasped hands and a forehead creased with concentration. It’s familiar, the face that means he’s busy figuring out his feelings and shit, but you don’t have time or energy to care. Every iota of brainpower is devoted to coming up with any plan beyond sitting in this alley and waiting to get caught or for Lucas to, like, die. A reluctant over-the-shoulder peek shows him passed out, probably from the pain, though he doesn’t look in quite as awful shape as you’d thought. Just a shit ton of blood. More than likely a concussion. If it weren’t self-sabotage, you’d have Vic run into the pharmacy to grab bandages and antiseptic.

_The pharmacy. That’s pretty con-fucking-venient_.

Inklings of a script are taking forever in your head. It’s probably four, four-thirty, the pre-rush hour lull for any business. The pharmacy must be close to empty of customers.

”I got it. I’m gonna go in here. You guys can fuck off.”

Vic gets it right away and scurries to load into the car, Belch following by default, but Henry waves his hands around like crazy while you walk towards the street. “Hey! What the fuck are you doing? What do you mean, fuck off?”

You stop to fix him with a gruesome glare. It’s a Tozier family heirloom. That’s when Patrick leaves his trance, catching sight of your grave seriousness, sliding off the hood to hop in.

”Henry, I’m going into the pharmacy and playing my sweet-little-girl card for Mr. Keene and you’d better hope you’re halfway to motherfucking Portland by the time 911 gets called, okay, you fucking idiot? Next time don’t let some asswipe calling you queer put you into a situation that could land you in jail, _please_.”

All said and done, you swivel on your heel and leave an agape Henry in the dust. 

⚘⚘⚘

Mr. Keene’s perversion may have freaked you out to the point of being reluctant to come buy tampons in the past, but everything has a silver lining, and fuck if you’re not going to make the most of this one. Coming up to the prescription counter at breakneck pace, you wail for him. “Mr. Keene! Oh, Mr. Keene, please help!”

That ugly head pops into view. You lean over the counter, panting and cheeks streamed with crocodile tears. He pushes his glasses up onto the bridge of his oily nose. 

“Dear me,” he says. You make sure to add a little tremor for believability. “Dear me, little lady, what do you need from me?”

”Oh, I just _have_ to use your telephone,” you weep. “Please. It’s a real emergency, I swear, a boy got beat up in the alley and the big man who did it just up and drove away!”

Where he’d been regarding you with odd amusement, the good-natured annoyance that adults get high on when they think that a kid is being dramatic, now his eyes grow as round as frying pans and almost as huge. “You aren’t pulling my leg?”

Hoping that your very being radiates distress, you give a slow, traumatized shake of the head. It works perfect to plan.

Mr. Keene rolls his desk chair a ways to the right where he picks the phone up to dial the magic number. A final forced tear dribbles off the tip of your nose. He watches it go, pity all over that shiny face, listening to the dial tone until the faint “911, what is your emergency?” hisses out of the speaker and bounces off of the walls. It’s creepy in here while it’s empty. You don’t love the sterile colours and lights, fluorescent bulbs, everything trying too hard to be clinical and pristine.

The lack of customers doesn’t make the place any more homey. To that effect, you’re surprised that Richie’s ‘special friend’ Eddie isn’t here to pick up one of his few thousand prescriptions for the new month. 

Amid his stammering relay to the 911 operator, Mr. Keene covers the receiver. “You said a big man beat the child up, dear?”

You sniffle. “Yes. He beat him and then drove away in a big truck. Towards the highway, I think.”

That’ll be a good red herring. It’s just some asshole from out of town picking fights with no-good kids — and you know from experience that Derry cops can’t stand kids like Lucas with his punky vibe any more than they can stand a fighter like Henry. As long as Lucas doesn’t get brave and start to make accusations, it’ll blow over in no time. Relief settles in.

”I saw it when I walked down the sidewalk by the alley. Mr. Keene, that boy is still out there, I think I’d just better go and sit with him until the ambulance or the police or whoever shows up, okay?”

He gives you a distracted nod and keeps babbling into the phone.

No, you don’t plan to sit and coddle Lucas for the next twenty minutes. You’re just sick of crying, and Mr. Keene has a wandering eye any day, let alone today while you’re in this damn dress. _What is it about me dressing nice that makes shit go wrong?_ you wonder, pushing out the door and blinking up at the late afternoon sun. _Maybe Henry was right and I do need to invest in some coveralls_. A turn around the building’s corner reveals Lucas, slightly more awake than when you’d left, but no more invested in trying to move. You steel yourself to be meaner than you’d like. Anything for your boys. _Anything for Patrick, more like_.

His pulp of a face contorts into a grimace at the sound of your footsteps. “Finishing–“ he coughs “–finishing the job your friends started, you psycho bitch?”

Playing coy, you stop a foot away, toeing innocently at the ground. “Not if you promise to keep this hush-hush. they were just teaching you what happens when you try to hit on a girl by calling her friends names.”

Another weak cough. “You’re fucking crazy.”

”I’m going to take that as a yes,” you tell him curtly, spinning around to kick up gravel at his face in your wake. It’s all over him like a neon sign. This isn’t a guy with the balls to fuck with the Bowers gang again. They’re safe. _Patrick’s safe_, that little voice reiterates, and you’d really like it to shut up.

As you walk away, though, he gets bold, screaming after you. “Fucking crazy, did you hear me? You and all four of your boyfriends, slut! You and that Hockstetter freak!”

He’s a jackass, you know that, a scared jackass. That doesn’t make the insults easier to hear until his voice breaks and fades out. It doesn’t make you any more certain that he’s wrong.

⚘⚘⚘

First you go home. The plan was to drive straight to Henry’s after school, or after the scuffle, but you have to walk now, so you might as well stop on the way to take a breather. The cake has to get picked up too. _This should give them time to come up with a creative way to say sorry for having me clean up their mess._ That thought makes you feel guilty; it’d been motivated by Henry’s pride, sure, but also out of anger at Lucas for acting the way he did towards you. Besides, in the end it was only one person who went off the rails.

Enveloped in thought, you walk through your house like a zombie, registering the drone of the TV and calling out a “Hey,” to Richie but not hearing his response.

You’re extra startled to open your bedroom door and see Patrick there. It doesn’t quite make you shriek, but it’s a close thing. The window’s open — you know it’d been shut this morning, so either he somehow got in through the front door unnoticed or he was really dedicated to prying it open from the outside.

Two steps into the room, you stop. “Why aren’t you at Henry’s?”

”I was—“ he tries to start.

Shaking your head, you raise a hand to cut him off. “Actually, Patrick, I don’t even wanna hear it, I really don’t. I’ve been so excited to make your birthday good and you have to go and try to kill a guy. What the fuck was that? Are you just playing some huge sick joke on everybody, pretending you’re getting better so that no one sees it coming when you act fucking insane?”

He actually blanches at the accusation. You’re just being pissy (rightfully so), it’s not like you believe it, but it’s the satisfying bite back that he deserves.

”It’s not like I know how to explain why I act the way I act.”

”Yeah, well, it’s not like I have to put up with this shit forever. That’s such a fucking cop-out and you know it. Stop expecting me to pretend it’s okay for you to act like a decent person one day and the same as you used to be the next, okay? I’m fucking tired.”

Confidence warms your chest. Patrick won’t even look up at you. Here’s another new look on him: shame.

”I’m tired,” you say again, gentler. “Patrick, you can’t be like that. And you definitely can’t be like that and then not put any effort into telling me why. I can’t do it anymore.”

He scoffs. It’s more of a reflex, a way to brush off anything serious so as to avoid it, not hateful. “So you put up with me when I was awful twenty-four-fucking-seven but not now? You put up with all the guys and their bullshit for four years just to pull the plug when I can’t explain myself?”

”Try,” you suggest.

Another huff. He glares hard. You don’t relent, but you do come forward to sit down on the carpet in front of the beanbag, making it clear that you’re willing to hear if he’s willing to talk.

The sun shines orange light through the window and clarifies tiny bits of dust floating in the air. One of them breezes over and sticks to Patrick’s eyelash. Despite the situation, you can’t help but get caught up in the swimming blue-green of his downcast eyes, the sharp angles of his face, the way he worries his bottom lip between his teeth. You almost don’t notice the sigh he finally gives, thick with resignation.

”It was easier when I didn’t have to feel shit,” he grumbles. Not a promising start. Then he lifts his head for eye contact. “I don’t like the way I am, [Y/N]. I never thought that way when I didn’t know the difference, but now it’s like half of me is on all this new shit and the other half is as bad as before, and I can’t choose which part is at the wheel. You know?”

You don’t. For encouragement’s sake, you nod.

”No, you don’t. You _can’t_. It _sucks_. I know, listen, I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’d rather be the way I was before last summer than the way I am now, one foot in and one foot out. Like today. I acted a lot like I would’ve back then, but I took it even further because I was fucking angry. I never used to get angry.” He's got his fists clenched. _I can’t handle it if he gets all agitated_, you think, and the first thing that comes to mind is to rest a hopefully comforting hand on his knee. To your surprise, he makes no protest.

”I was angry,” he continues, “and I guess I know why.”

After a few seconds, you cock your head to the side and quip, “Would you like to share with the class?”

That startles a laugh out of him. Then he groans, leaning back and rubbing his eyes like the mere idea of further explaining himself is exhausting. You keep the hand on his knee and squeeze once to remind him you’re still here.

”That,” he says at last. “When you do shit like that. When you act sweet to me like I didn’t treat you bad for fuckin’ _years_, Tozier.”

”What about it?” You try to keep it light, but he looks down at you in total seriousness. “You know I forgive you for everything. You’re one of my best friends, okay, and you’re different now even if you don’t think it’s in a good way. And you still haven’t told me what was going through your head today.”

”Well. I don’t want to.”

”Well. I don’t care.”

Patrick fidgets. “You’re not gonna let this go.” A statement, not a question. You shake your head. “Tozier, I would’ve killed that asswipe if you hadn’t stopped me, and you’re still acting like I’m redeemable or some shit.”

”Stop stalling.”

”_Fine_.” He squirms once more, then seems to make a choice. When he scoffs to one side of the beanbag and pats the other, you don’t understand what he wants for a second. “Sit.”

”Oh.” You sit.

It takes another while for him to get started again. The sun’s fading out; it’s gotta be evening, not much time until Mom and Dad get home, but you’re not stopping now. Some kind of energy is building up here. Hell if you’re going to interrupt it. When Patrick starts up once more, his voice is raw, vulnerable in a way you’ve only heard once, the day you found him in the Barrens. He says it all in one long stream of speech like he’s afraid he won’t be able to keep on going if he pauses.

”You were on my radar as soon as you started looking grown up last year, only for one thing, and I know that’s nasty and fucked up but it’s true. Plus I knew how you felt for me. I liked that back then, I liked to know that you were mine if I wanted you, and that was the first thing I ever got guilty over when I started to feel shit. Cuz I would’ve used you if I’d had the chance. I don’t like that. So I ignored some stuff that started coming up after the summer. Thought it was just leftover asshole-Patrick. Then it got really clear that it was more than that, and you’re young enough that I probably should ignore it, but I’m not that far into morals yet.” That bit is suffixed with a rueful smile.

_This is not happening. I’m misinterpreting everything out of his mouth. There’s no-o-o-o-o fucking way_.

”That kid treating you like meat pissed me off as much because it’s how I would’ve treated you, you know, before, as because I want to treat you _better_, alright? I want to tell you when I think you look pretty, not in a sleazebag way, and take you to the big city to parties and movies and shit. And take you home. In the sleazebag way. I know it’s not cool to say that, but I can’t be sappy this whole time. I beat the shit out of the guy because I didn’t want him thinking of you the way I’ve been thinking of you. Didn’t want him to like you.”

The way he talks is confusing. Probably because the way he feels confuses him. Regardless, it gives you a hell of a time trying to interpret what he’s saying. You’re so anxious you could puke. The voice that comes out of your mouth is squeaky, but if you’re reading this whole situation right, you can’t be bothered with humiliation. “You like me?”

”I didn’t say that.” He goes on the defensive, another reflex, then appears to realize that’s not helpful here. “I guess you could say that.”

”I’m gonna say it.”

”Go ahead.”

”You _like_ me.” You turn to face him. It’s a bit closer than expected since you’re both squeezed onto the beanbag. A flush reddens your cheeks. “Oh, hi. You like me.”

”Yeah,” he allows. “I don’t know if I’d take it to heart, if I were you. You know I’m not real stable. Not the doting type.”

Hand still secure on his knee, you shrug. “Yeah, because that’s totally stopped me from giving you heart eyes since I was, like, an infant.”

A pleasant quiet ensues. Both of you stare at the opposite wall in pondering. The real excitement hasn’t quite set in yet — your brain is still trying to wrap itself around the whole thing. _Patrick likes me, even if that’s still a weird concept for him. Likes me. Likesmelikesmelikesme. Oh my god, if ten-year-old me could see this. If me from last week could see this_.

Just as you’re on the verge of entering full teenage-girl-lovey-dovey freakout mode, the familiar noise of the front door opening comes from downstairs. Richie’s voice echoes a “Hey, ma!”

”Oh shit,” Patrick says. Your sentiments exactly.

⚘⚘⚘

It’s easy enough to get to Henry’s. Patrick leaves the way he came while you hustle downstairs, hug your parents hello and remind them where you’ll be tonight, grab the cake out of the fridge, bolt. The only obstacle is Richie sticking a foot out to trip you on the way to the door. Out of sheer force of will, you keep an iron grip on the cake in its tray, shooting him a dirty look that’s met with a stuck-out tongue. Sibling communication at its finest.

For all of your planning, the rest of the night speeds right by, helped along by the matter of Henry, Vic, and Belch all being past tipsy by the time you and Patrick show up. They’re all over you, showering praise for getting them out of hot shit with the Lucas situation, and you take it happily. Vic gives you a dozen drunken wet cheek kisses. Those are a bit less appreciated. Maybe it’s a figment of imagination, but you don’t think that Patrick is a big fan either.

The happy birthday song gets sung about nine times over the course of the entire bonfire. Belch offers his burped version and everybody else but you is drunk enough to burst into singing whenever the urge strikes. Patrick’s joining in on it by the end. He winds up laying on the grass next to your chair following his sixth vodka soda (Vic shelled out at the liquor store for the occasion), humming to himself, shooting sidelong glances in your vague direction with a shit-eating grin. _Nice to know I’m not the only one thinking about that_. You won’t directly address what ‘that’ is. Can’t jinx it. It’d be so typical of the universe to give you a few hours of something to be excited for, only to have Patrick change his mind or never acknowledge it again. For the moment, you’re more than happy to wallow in his gaze.

Ever the room-reader, Vic picks up on the shift between you two even in his state. He pulls his chair up to your other side with some serious effort. The expression he bears is equal parts confused, hostile, and pleased somehow. Basically, he’s fucking hammered while trying to play protective best friend, and you’re glad to be sober just for the ability to laugh at this kind of stuff.

”He’s a’lookin’ at you,” Vic tries to whisper. It comes out at full volume. Patrick, still grinning, lifts a floppy arm to give him the finger. “[Y/N], he’s lookin’. You better do somethin’.”

Humouring him, you put on your best serious face. “What do you think I should do?”

”Beat him up,” is the first suggestion. You wait. “Fuck, I don’know. Kiss him. He won’t even remember it in the morning, he’s so _tra-a-a-a-ashed_.”

The irony of Vic calling anybody out for being trashed isn’t lost on you. It’s funny, though, and more importantly, he’s probably very right. You lean to the other side so that your head hangs a foot over Patrick’s. “Patrick, you’re very drunk.”

He points at you. “Very yes.”

”You won’t remember this tomorrow.”

”Not even...” He loses the train of thought, falters, then finds it again. “Not even a little. Tozier, your face is fuckin’... great. Good job.”

That settles it. You pat Vic’s head, the best thanks for his affection-starved liking, and slip out of the chair onto the slippery grass. Mocking little ‘oohs’ sound from the other side of the fire where you’d thought Henry and Belch were trying to play Go Fish with a quarter of a deck of cards. Flipping them off isn’t worth the effort.

Patrick watches you sidle up to lie next to him, propped upright on your elbows. The fire reflects in the pupils of that enrapt gaze. Something’s shifted indeed. It’s like a suspension has broken, like this funny tension has been building for quite some time, going unnoticed until it’s snapped. In the moonlight, you feel brave.

Not brave enough. When you tilt your head down it’s with the intent to give Patrick a kiss, albeit more of a quick peck than anything, but at the last second you chicken out and twist your neck so that it lands high on his cheek. _Smooth. Way to take initiative_.

Mirroring your thoughts, Vic slurs out something like a ‘boo’.

”Fuck off,” Patrick calls out. His voice is loud up close. In stark contrast to the dreamy haze a minute ago, his eyes have brightened and come to fix more solidly on you where you still hover a few inches above him, face-to-face.

”Not like you wanted her to lay one on ya,” Belch says.

_He doesn’t even know! They don’t know!_ You’re elated all over again at the reminder that there’s something to know about. It’s fine that they don’t know it tonight, though. Better that he and Henry think it’s just friendly screwing around, better that Vic thinks you’re just getting ballsy in the late night because ‘no one will remember’. With the sudden lucidity Patrick’s gaze holds, you’re not too sure about all that. As if to prove your wondering, he gives you a knowing smirk.

”Try again,” he says. A command, but so quiet you’re the only one able to hear it.

Caught off guard, your cheeks get hot. It still doesn’t feel real, too fresh, too much of a surprise, not helped by how abruptly the topic had been dropped when your parents came home. _But. He’s asking me to kiss him. Telling me to kiss him. So it has to be real. What am I gonna do, say no?_ Again, you lower your head.

Patrick’s no sweetheart. Affectionate confession aside, he’s not very gentle by nature, nor is he patient when he wants anything. You shouldn’t be surprised at the hand that flies up to slide under the hair at the nape of your neck with way more force than someone six drinks deep should be capable of. It shocks a gasp of of you, quickly blocked when he yanks you the rest of the way down to him.

This time is so much closer to your daydreams, you can hardly stand it. He’s no more tender than he was last summer. You’re more prepared, though, if only by a little, and you’re equipped with the knowledge that he isn’t thing to hurt you, and it makes all the difference. Patrick kisses hard but his mouth is so soft. So warm. Tentative, inexperienced, you try to match the tilt, the movements he makes, the whole thing lasting no longer than five seconds despite feeling like ages. He tugs at your hair once, playful, and then lets you pull back.

You don’t get the luxury of wallowing in the good feeling. “Nice show,” Henry whistles. “When can I get in on that, princess?”

The hostile scowl that overtakes Patrick’s features isn’t unexpected. Sure, he knows as well as you do that Henry’s clueless to what’s going on, just stirring up shit because he thinks it’ll get you riled up. He’s got no idea of who the one getting mad actually is. _Not tonight, you don’t, you slap-happy motherfucker._ You give Patrick one more brief kiss on impulse. It works as intended; he goes lax again, forgetting Henry, and you’re pleased to have him turn those glimmering eyes back on you.

Content, you flop down onto your stomach in the grass, head turned to face Patrick. You pay no mind to the other three boys bantering back and forth about some completely new subject. You’re still counting on none of them keeping the memory of these ten or so minutes when they wake up tomorrow. 

Meeting Patrick’s eyes and shuffling a little closer to him, you decide that whatever this is, whatever it’s becoming, you’d like to keep it to yourself for the time being. You and him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI sorry for dying!! i got lazy n didn’t bother typing this up LOL also i went thru a lil bit of writers block which i hope isn’t toooooo obvious, i know this isn’t the best chapter but i already like what ive written of the next one way more so! look 4ward 2 that xoxo gossip girl

It’s not a huge surprise, the way the next while goes, just a little bit of a disappointment. Colossal disappointment. Whatever. In the end, you guess it’s your own fault for getting your hopes up, for letting yourself think everything would start to go according to your crush-fuelled dreams.

No, Patrick’s alleged ‘liking you’ doesn’t change much of anything at all. There’s the kids at Henry’s house on his birthday, which is awesome. (You’re pretty sure that he does remember it as opposed to the rest of the guys.) He doesn’t walk you home that night on account of passing out on the lawn, so you use that time alone to play it back a thousand times, reaching up to brush your fingers over your lips, as if you can still feel the press of his against them. It’s almost midnight, your curfew, and your family’s asleep when you get home, but you don’t nod off until the barest hints of morning light are threaded through the sky. The night’s events keep repeating over in your head on loop.

Unfortunately, it turns out you’ve lost sleep for nothing. Been excited over nothing. The weekend continues as usual — hanging out as a group in the clearing and driving around town with the Trans Am’s top down, Patrick chilling in your room during the downtime. Weekend becomes week, everything going exactly as it always does. You hate it. It’s like nothing ever happened.

Worse still, it’s a bad idea to confide in Vic, what with his whole conflict of interest in thinking Patrick’s bad for you. Henry probably wouldn’t offer much beyond ‘suck it up’. Belch... he’s sort of clueless in this field. You can only imagine how long it would take just to explain to him that you like Patrick at all. When the month has drawn on, end of the school year approaching and Patrick not having done a damn thing to acknowledge the kiss or its implications, you find yourself wishing that you had girlfriends to help figure this stuff out. As it is, you don’t. You have three ruled-out boys. And you have Richie.

Desperate times, desperate measures.

”No,” he says the second you open his bedroom door. Very promising. “I’m so fucking busy right now. I don’t have time for your face.”

”You're just looking through a photo album full of Polaroids of Eddie,” you point out.

He slams the book shut and sits up from where he’d been laying on his stomach in bed. “It’s important business. I get that you don’t know what it’s like to be stunningly sexy and have a bomb-ass boyfriend, but don’t project that shit onto me.”

”I hope you get a tapeworm,” you tell him, shutting the door behind you and coming to sit down on the opposite end of the bed from him. “And don’t be all cocky, cuz I’m here to talk about a boy, actually. Who could end up being my boyfriend.”

You can’t blame your brother for being disgusted at this, at being come to for boy advice by his baby sister. The theatrics are a bit much, though — he mimes shooting himself in the head.

”Stop it. I would  not be here if I had another choice.”

”You could ask Beverly,” he says, getting desperate. “She’s a girl. She knows things.”

The thought had crossed your mind, but it doesn’t work out. “Bev’s going to see her aunt when school’s out at the end of the week, Rich. She’ll be gone for, like, a month. I need to be scheming all summer and it’s not like you won’t have spare time whenever Mrs. Kaspbrak decides that Eddie’s magically sprained both ankles and he needs weeks of bedrest by himself. Plus, you know, Bev doesn’t know the guy as well as you do.”

‘Well’ may be an overstatement. Richie and Patrick have exchanged small talk over dinner pretty often lately, though, which is more than can be said for Beverly. She wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole.

There’s a second of confusion on Richie’s end. It turns into grossed-out recognition. “Hockstetter?  Still? You’ve been after him since you were in diapers! He practically lives here, isn’t it like incest now?”

”Tapeworm,” you repeat. “I’m not here to be judged, okay. And I’m not just chasing after him anymore, because he told me he likes me, so I have to get him to start acting like it. You’re a boy. You’re emotionally stunted. You can help.”

”I’m not stunted, I–“

”Use humour to cope, whatever, Richie, I just need help, okay?”

He leans back with clasped hands. Clucks his tongue. “I guess the master can be of some assistance.”

Now he’s gonna spend his life thinking he’s hot shit. Even more than he already did. This better be worth it .

Richie’s first idea is to play hard to get. That’s shot down. It’s not an easy thing to do when Patrick has been well aware, for Lord knows how long, of how much you like him. You’ve also already nailed down the years-of-pining strategy that had eventually gotten Richie and Eddie together. It hasn’t been effective in your case. With those two ruled out, you’re both left stumped, sitting on his bed in a thoughtful lull.

Finally, you turn to him, a metaphorical lightbulb popping up over your head. “What if I just pretend like we’re already dating?”

”Um.” He holds up a hand, limp-wristed, oh-so-camp. “Because that doesn’t make any goddamn sense?”

”No, no, no, no, no. Hear me out. I don’t mean, like, tell him I love him or try to... I don’t know. Whatever you think I mean, not that. I mean how people act when they’re just starting to date, like, cheek kisses and going out to do stupid stuff together like get slushies.”

”Stop watching so many romcoms,” Richie advises. You give him the evil eye. He sighs and rubs at his eyes beneath his glasses. “Yeah, I guess that’s the best we got. Don’t come crying to me when you get maggot heroes from that cheek kissing shit.”

”That’s not—“ You sputter, flinging a pillow at him in disgust. “That’s not even a thing. You think your hypochondriac boyfriend would come near you if it was?”

”Touché.”

You relax, already continuing back down the path to plan this whole Patrick schtick. It’s a mistake to let your guard down. Though you may have won that single battle, it’s always Richie’s goal to win the war. Right now that means picking up the pillow where it’s fallen at his side and hurling both it and himself at you, sending you both flying to the floor. The ensuing wrestle doesn’t go in your favour (Richie’s got almost a foot on you and his scrawniness has become more lean lately, what are you supposed to do?), but you’ll get him back. After all, you’re pretty much a plotting mastermind now.

⚘⚘⚘

As it turns out, you don’t wind up needing Richie much more for your scheming. He’s grateful. 

The plan starts out simple. Patrick’s big issue even as a friend is that he’s content to have no conversation. Most of his time in your room — and there’s a lot of it — is spent quietly. He’ll speak when spoken to, he just isn’t an initiator. Other than the routine small talk he makes with Mom and sometimes Richie over food, he’s not one for mundane questions. ‘How was your day’ is out, so you brainstorm topics that might get him engaged, or at least come out of left field and throw him off of his game. In the spirit of the thing, you do your thinking in the beanbag chair the next afternoon during a rare moment alone. 

A token ‘do you think aliens are real’ is the first one to cross your mind, and then you pause.  Do I want to know if he’s still on that weird shit, thinking he’s the only thing that’s ‘real’? No. No I do not. Next?

Later, close to ten at night when your parents have fallen asleep and it’s safe to speak to your secret guest, you look up from your crossword puzzle with a talking point prepared on the tip of your tongue.

You’re the one who gets thrown off of their game. Patrick’s already looking at you. He seems to have been looking for awhile. The words escape you and leave you openmouthed but mute, caught in an an accidental staring contest. They’re never any fun with him because he barely blinks. Those ocean eyes make it hard to complain.

”Something up?” he asks. It’s laced with amusement. 

Of course it is. I could catch flies on my tongue gawking like this, Jesus . You snap your mouth shut, having forgotten all of your plans. Apparently your voice box has a mind of its own. It opens again without permission. “You should probably kiss me again.”

For the love of fuck. How many scheme steps did that skip, five? Might as well have just offered up my hand in marriage! That would have been just as forward! I could not possibly come on stronger, damn it, if that doesn’t scream pathetic I don’t know what does—

Your panicked thought process is allowed to go on for about ten seconds. It’s cut off abruptly after that. Patrick had appeared as surprised as you at your outburst, but he recovers much quicker, adopting a sly aura about himself, almost playful. It makes you more than a little nervous, as if that weren’t enough of a problem to begin with.

”Yeah? You think so?” There’s that v-shaped smirk. He leans forward, hands joined between his knees, looking up at you unblinkingly. “Why should I?”

Obviously he can’t go easy on you. You curse to yourself.  Couldn’t just stick to the script, huh?

Cheeks flushed, you try to match the intensity of his stare, not quite reaching full potential. He’s so attractive it’s intimidating, even now when he’s doing the creepy fixation thing. Those dark eyes, the curve of his nose, the quick dart of his tongue out to wet his lips; it all leaves you tongue-tied. You can’t come up with a retort to keep him on his toes.

He notices. The grin stretches somehow further. “Cat got your tongue, doll?” 

Even worse. Now you’re bordering on hyperventilation. Aside from a few instances of ‘princess’ in that cruel voice during some testy moods in the past year, Patrick hasn’t given you much for nicknames, least of all pet names.  Doll . It echoes a few dozen times in your head.  It doesn’t even sound like he’s making fun of me. I think I’m gonna have a heart attack. Oh, my god, I have to say something . 

“No.”  Oh, yeah that’s so much better. I’m an idiot. “Um, I don’t...”

You’re drawing a blank. Patrick can tell, and he’s unimpressed. You catch the interested glint fading from his eyes and manage to regroup, try again. This time you have to break his gaze and look at the wall to stop being so flustered. It’s the best you can do. 

“Because,” you say. He waits. “Because I want you to?”

”Is that a question?”

Jesus, he’s really not going to give me a break . “No. I do want you to. So you should, if you wanna.”

That’s the kicker. You can’t tell if he’s on the same wavelength. For all that’s given away by the look he’s got you fixed with, he might have gotten over whatever he supposedly felt for you.  Maybe that’s why he’s been acting like nothing happened. It’d be weird if he got over me in, like, three weeks, but it’s Patrick. Since when is he not weird? I’m getting too far into my head again . You blink a few times to clear the worry away.

After a long few seconds, Patrick moves again. He unfolds out of the beanbag and approaches the bed. Kneeling to be at eye level, he drops the grin, replacing it with something more serious that isn’t any more comforting. All of a sudden you feel vulnerable, legs dangling over the side of the bed with just enough space between them for him to move into. When his face stops a few inches away from yours, you have to hold back a whimper. It escapes anyway.

The sound breaks the ice. Patrick reaches up to hold your chin, as if he knows you’re in danger of getting the jitters and turning away. His touch is electric. So is his voice from so up close, low and rough around the edges.

”If I wanna,” he muses. “[Y/N], I think you’d let me do a lot of things if I wanted to.”

Cryptic, weird. Very true. You don’t bother trying too hard to wonder what in particular he means. As it turns out, you don’t have the time to.

Patrick closed those precious few inches in an act of mercy. The press of his mouth against yours is gradually becoming familiar. Still, it sets every nerve ending in your body alight. You make another embarrassing little noise in the back of your throat but it doesn’t deter him, the two of you melting together, so natural it’s like coming home. There’s no big romantic novel moment of tongue being introduced; both his and your mouth are parted from the start, the occasional trace of his tongue over your bottom lip no big deal. Same as both of the previous times, it’s not very gentle, but you never mind.

You do have to retreat for air eventually. It’s a bit disappointing. The other kisses have come to a stop at this point. Before you can get too let down, though, Patrick moves a hand to the nape of your neck and brings you back for more. His blown-out pupils catch your attention in the millisecond before he closes them again, sending a thrill through you. 

I could get used to this, you think, mimicking Patrick’s movements to keep up and basking in the feeling of his hands on you. The one not holding your head in place has come to rest on your thigh. His skin seems to be a million degrees, a hot handprint through the thin cotton of your sweatpants. On a whim, you dare to nip lightly at him, catching the softness of his bottom lip between your teeth just for a moment. You’re rewarded by the tightening of both hands and a growly sort of gasp.  Oh, I could really get used to this .

Unfamiliar warmth coils around low in your tummy after another short while of this bliss. It’s very sudden and very new and not super comfortable. You break away, chest heaving (partly for air and partly from pure enjoyment), pleased to notice Patrick’s face to be as flushed as yours feels. He doesn’t try to pull you back to him, but he doesn’t back away from where he occupies the space between your legs.

That sounds dirty, you realize, glad you’re already red-faced and can’t blush any more than you already are. It’s certainly PG-13, the way he’s positioned, one hand refusing to lift from your leg. On the bright side, nobody’s around to judge. Nobody’s around at all.

”It might be a bad idea for me to be in your room every night,” Patrick breathes, voicing an extension of your own thoughts. He’s still so close to you. It takes real effort not to get caught in the sea-hued kaleidoscope of his irises. 

Your voice cracks. “It m-might be.”

He’s right. It’s a bit unacceptable to have a boy in your room at late hours, much more so when it’s a boy who you’re in the habit of doing  this with. That’s just common sense. Despite common sense, Patrick still doesn’t move and he doesn’t leave. You can’t find a thread of the will to protest. 

Though he doesn’t make another move on you, he does stay in place for a minute or two, stroking a thumb up and down the back of your neck, never averting his gaze or lowering its intensity, eyes flirting around to map every square inch of your face. Your gut reaction is to shy away from the heavy attention. Something stops you. For the first time, he’s giving you the same devotion you’ve directed at him forever, even if it’s only to analyze your face. There’s something to be said about that.

When he draws back at last, you let out a breath you hadn’t noticed yourself holding. Now you feel cold without him pressed close. 

He reasserts his beanbag position with the same relaxation as though he’d never left it. Clearly, he doesn’t plan on leaving anytime soon, whether or not it’s morally okay for him to be here, and you discover that you don’t mind one bit. With some hesitance, you go back to sitting up against the wall, puzzle book in your lap like you’re going to be able to focus on it anytime soon. The lamp flickers.

Uncomfortable in the following silence, your earlier plan resurfaces, complete with finally remembering the question you’d wanted to ask.

”Hey.”

He snaps his head back up. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he was blushing. The thought threatens to throw you off again, but you hold strong.

”What would you do if you won the lottery?”

Beyond coming out of left field, this also startles a laugh from him. “Where did that come from?”

You shrug, playing like you hadn’t spent hours thinking up this kind of shit. “I was just wondering.”

He shrugs back. “I’d do the same things I do now. But maybe with a really nice car.”

”A car and that’s it? With the whole lottery? That’s a waste of money. I’d literally have to rob you, Patrick.”

”Fine by me, Tozier,” he drawls. His smirk has made a reappearance. The stance he holds is hard to read, predatory in part, but there’s a definite softness in the gaze. “You can go ahead and take what you want.”

The involuntary shiver that makes its way down your spine doesn’t go unnoticed. You practically shove your flaming-hot face into the puzzle book, unable to handle his crystal clear satisfaction at having affected you.  Fuck, he makes me act like a little kid, and he knows it too.  Of course your heart is still beating out of your chest, an aftereffect of the kiss, so you can’t find it within yourself to be bitter.

You spend another hour sneaking sidelong glances at him and buzzing with joy. He never catches you in the act, occupied with one of your secondhand crime novels, but you think you can sense him doing the same. Looking right at you when you aren’t looking at him.

⚘⚘⚘

In the first week of summer vacation, things start to progress much quicker than they’d been doing for the final month of school. Still pretty slow, either way.

Richie is the only one who seems to be aware of it since he was instrumental or whatever in helping figure out how to initiate anything. He makes a big fat point of fake gagging every time he catches your doe eyes aimed at Patrick during dinners. Mom’s noticed it once or twice and looked a little suspicious, but she still hasn’t found out exactly how much time Patrick really spends in the Tozier home, even with that time growing longer, so you think it’s all going fine.

Whenever the gang is out together, it’s hard to keep subtle, which is very much on purpose. On Patrick’s account, not yours. He’s nonchalant as usual one-on-one, responsive to your increasing, assertiveness, always ready to pull you close to him if you make it clear you’re thinking of it, but he doesn’t do much of the initiating himself. Unfortunately, though, he catches on right away to your worry around the rest of the boys picking up on the new developments. In a typical old-Patrick vindictive move, he makes it his mission to be as obvious as possible around them, just short of sticking his tongue down your throat. It’s a dangerous game to play. One saving grace is that the other boys aren’t exactly perceptive.

Patrick’s shenanigans start off careful enough to escape your own regard. He happens to sit across from you through the last five days at the cafeteria table, which isn’t unheard of. The first thing to draw actual attention is the touching.

You’re in the habit of stretching your arms across the table once you’ve finished eating, a relaxed kind of vulnerability. No one ever bats an eye. Patrick, however, takes it as an opportunity on the final Friday. He casually but deliberately reaches his fingers out from his own side to trace over the backs of your hands. It’s not a big deal. It just makes you stop short in the middle of talking to Vic about the movie you want to go see with him over the weekend.

”You good?” Vic quirks up an eyebrow. Blessedly, he doesn’t happen to see what’s going on. Henry, on Patrick’s left, does, making a really weird face, but you keep your own expression straight.  This is normal, this is fine, this is no big deal .

”Good,” you affirm, continuing the conversation. In your peripheral vision, you can tell Patrick’s got that coy look on his face, surely all too pleased to have ruffled your feathers. He keeps on dusting his fingertips across your skin. Henry loses interest and must decide it’s nothing worth caring about, turning away to munch on his sandwich. You’re relieved.

It won’t be that easy to pass off as nothing if he does it again. That realization comes to you when you’re in bed the same night.

As a last-day-of-school thing, the group had cruises around town all evening until long past dark, not starting shit, just having fun. (Henry does throw an egg at Ben Hanscom’s house because the kid wouldn’t let him copy final exam answers. He gets a scolding from you, but you’re impressed that he doesn’t try anything worse.) It’s a great time, although it means that Patrick heads straight for his own house to sleep after Belch drops you off, leaving no chance to ask him what the hell the stuff at lunchtime was about. Not that you believe he’d be sorry if you got mad. He thinks you’re cute when you’re mad, or so he’s said, which only ever serves to make you more mad, and it becomes a vicious cycle.

All I can really do is play along, I guess. He’ll probably go at it even harder if I make a big deal out of it. Maybe the guys won’t notice anything if I can keep a lid on it.

Very bold of you to assume that any aspect of the situation is up to you. A lid is not kept on it.

There’s a break from the Bowers gang during the weekend so that you almost forget the issue. Saturday, you and Vic catch a movie together, and he doesn’t seem to be harbouring any suspicion. He’d mention it if he were. You feel sort of guilty for keeping things from him — it’s never been standard for there to be secrets in this friendship. Justifying it isn’t super hard. Whatever is happening between you and Patrick is fresh and uncertain. That’s as much of a factor in keeping it under wraps as the whole problem of being scared that Vic will think you’re an idiot.

If it does go anywhere, the truth will come out. You just don’t want to look stupid if it doesn’t.

Sunday is a family barbecue on the other side of town, a full-day event ripe with close and distant relatives telling you how much you’ve grown up and pinching your cheeks. You go into it expecting the same as every year, uneventful but something to pass the time. It ends up bittersweet.

Richie brings Eddie with him, not explicitly as a date, but staying so securely by his side that they may as well be conjoined. Your extended family is one of the more open-minded ones in Derry, so the worst the two of them get are a few wide-eyed stares from younger cousins who have never seen boys hold hands. Neither of them minds much. 

You can’t help but watch your brother look at his boyfriend with stars in his eyes, watch Eddie do the same when he’s sure Richie isn’t looking. They’re so in love that it makes your chest ache. You’re happy for them, obviously. More than happy. It just stings to see two people who have figured out how to adore eachother, best friends, a perfect match against all odds. You want that. You want it with one person in spite of all of the reasons you shouldn’t. The kicker is that you’re already on the same level of fondness as Richie, but you’re there alone.

On that note, the barbecue leaves you melancholy for awhile in its aftermath. No real hangouts come up in the next few days. It’s an uneventful first week off of school. Patrick resumes his visits after dinners, but you don’t bother making any moves, back to the old routine of quiet cohabitation. One nice factor of the circumstances is that you make more progress in your crossword book than you have been in weeks. He never says anything, leading you to assume that he either doesn’t notice the difference or doesn’t care.

After all this time with him, you should know better than to make assumptions.

Though the clearing hasn’t been a hotspot this year as much as before, it’s a Thursday afternoon, everyone’s too broke to go anyplace special, and it’s ashady enough space to give some relief from the early July heatwave. Belch is the one to suggest it. He’s already low on gas money for the month. To his credit, he’s making the most of the underwhelming venue. He and Vic find a gopher hole near the treeline and come up with the genius idea to use sticks and a rock to play a Neanderthal version of golf. 

Having extorted a slushy out of Henry when he’d walked over to your house to go as a group into the woods, you’re sitting on a flattened patch of grass and sipping it, content.

Henry bullshits around for awhile. He turns up his nose at the weird sport, instead occupying himself by hurling rocks at nearby birds.  Much more productive, I guess . Thankfully, he never aims true. Patrick is watching the spectacle as aptly as you are, probably more as a technique critic than an upset bystander, based on his experience in the animal torture field.

You grimace at the thought. Ideally, you avoid remembering that part of the past. It hasn’t come up at any really unfortunate times, but you fear the possibility of kissing Patrick and having the mental image of his murder fridge interrupt.

He might be able to read your mind. No sooner than the thought of kissing him presents itself, he rolls over from his lounging spot on a flat rock in the sunniest part of the area (he’s so catlike it’s uncanny) to look at you.

You take an aggressive sip of your straw.

Defiance hasn’t deterred Patrick in the past, nor does it today. He lifts a hand to beckon you over. You take a brief inventory; Vic and Belch have resorted to pouring their waterbottle contents down the gopher hole, while Henry has tired himself out and gone to doze off sitting propped up against the dead log in the middle of the open space. For the moment, nobody is paying any attention to this. Whatever  this is. You suppose you’ll have to find out. With a long-suffering sigh, you drag yourself upright and take the half-dozen steps to stand over him.

”What?” You keep your voice down. For good measure, the hand not holding the slushy comes to perch on your hip. The goal is to radiate don’t-fuck-with-me energy.

Patrick would have to be on his deathbed to quit fucking with you. He motions for you to come closer. “Gotta tell you something.”

Interested now but unwilling to show it, you school your features into a frown as you bend down to his face. You’re distracted by the effort of looking annoyed. The hand coming up to grab the collar of your tank top doesn’t register until it’s too late. Now the goal has become to reel back from the impromptu makeout session Patrick yanks you down into. It’s sloppy in a way that you think you might not hate if the setting were different. Right here and now, you despise it.

It’s no small feat to detach from his iron drip and submit to the heart-wrenching loss of touch, but you do the job without doing anything to alert the other three boys, though a surprised squeal does almost escape you when he first grabs you. Whipping your head around wildly, you find the scene in the clearing exactly as it was five seconds ago. None of them is faced in your direction.

But they could’ve turned and saw .

”Don’t!” You can’t be bothered to keep quiet with this part. Complaining about shit that Patrick does is almost a personality trait of yours at this point. It doesn’t set off any red flags. “I’ll hit you. Don’t even try me.”

”Nobody saw,” he murmurs, tugging at the frayed hem of your jean shorts. Now he’s being almost soft. Traitorous, your heart twirls in a slow, happy little circle, and you preen a little bit at the affection. Then he sticks the other hand out so fast you hardly see it grasp your drink and tear it from your hands. “Thanks.”

Too late, he’s taking the last few hearty sips, but you plead anyway. “Patrick,  no-o-o-o-o . That’s my  favourite flavour , you dickhead.”

This is, of course, a set-up too. Sleazy, he sets the cup down on the rock at his opposite side, smiling up at you. A real, toothy smile, none of the greasy smirk you love to hate. “Come get some, then, doll.” To rub his point in, he taps on his cherry-stained lips.

_Oh, fuck no, I am not kissing him again. It was a fluke to not get caught a minute ago._ You try to retreat, but he reaches for you once more, with what you think is the intent to grab and hold you in place. On the contrary, he’s being soft. Somehow he maneuvers so that your hand is held in his. Your breath hitches on its way out.

”Patrick,” you say. You’re not sure where your train of thought is going. ‘Nowhere’ seems about right. 

Still, against odds, the other three boys are occupied with themselves. A few swears come from Belch and Vic’s corner, a few snores come from Henry’s. Patrick is right here in front of you, looking up expectantly.

_What am I supposed to do, say no?_

Throwing caution to the wind, your willpower shatters and you lean down, of your own accord this time, to kiss him a bit harder than you set out to do. He does indeed taste like the syrupy last dregs of cherry slush. You resist the urge to put all of your weight on him because there may be a chance to hide this if anyone turns around to see it, but it’ll be a significantly smaller chance if you’re literally all over eachother.

When you break for air, you have to break the hold of his hand, well aware that the kissing can’t continue for any longer than you’ve managed to get away with. Patrick lets you, clearly in an episode of tenderness, but you’re on edge now, aware that he’s making a game of this. Though Henry and Belch are clueless as ever, Vic’s observant enough to pick up on certain things. Kissing aside, just the way you and Patrick are looking at eachother would probably qualify under ‘certain things’. Vic making a discovery is not a scenario you want to confront today.

The very instant you start back towards your spot on the ground under the impression that you’re free to go, Patrick makes a funny, faint whiny sound. It pauses you.

”Stay here,” he almost demands, making grabby hands in a brand-new show of neediness. The mischievous gleam over his eyes suggests that it’s more of a strategic move than a legitimate one. You’ll take what you can get. He smacks the open rock area on his other side to show you where he wants you. In a louder, more pointed voice, wavering with amusement, he makes sure everyone else hears. “Come on, Tozier, give a guy some love.”

”Scared you’ll get cooties?” Belch hoots on cue. Of course he’s paying attention now.

All according to Patrick’s plan. Patrick offers you a mocking display of puppy eyes, now subject to Belch and Vic’s watch, and you weigh your options. There’s not a lot of weighing to do. Lay down with him and chill out, or be made fun of. It feels a little bit unfair. _Is this what I get for signing up to be best buddies with a bunch of boys who never aged past twelve in the maturity department?_

Yeah, it really is. You swallow your pride and slink around to reach the empty space, defeated. Even worse is how comfortable it ends up being when you lie down. The sun’s been hitting this spot for hours now, baking it, soothing and smooth against your body. Pointedly, you rest on the side that leaves you facing away from your almost-boyfriend/definite-mortal-enemy. Nonetheless, you can sense how pleased he is with himself.

He doesn’t bother with touching you again. The day wears on with nothing else out of the ordinary going on; nobody acts like they’re getting any ideas just from the two of you lounging side-by-side on the rock. For that, you’re grateful, but the day hangs heavy because you can tell he won’t be making it easy on you from here forward. Your traitorous heart makes it almost impossible to be too bothered.

⚘⚘⚘

Next up during the following weeks: you’re forced to switch seats in your own family dining room because _someone_ is getting into the habit of resting his hand on top of your leg beneath the table. It comes as such a shock the first time that you choke on a piece of broccoli. Again, no one happens to catch on, excluding a few skeptical glances from Richie, and half of his squinting is only due to him needing new glasses. This goes on for three or four nights. After so long, you stop trying to pretend it doesn’t make your mouth go dry when you feel Patrick’s slender fingers tap-tap-tapping circles atop your thigh. You back down.

Backing down consists of plopping down in Richie’s chair on the opposite side from the one that’s been yours all your life.

”I’ll make you sorry you were ever born,” is Richie’s casually delivered response to the switcheroo as he sits down next to Patrick. Patrick’s expression towards you says the same thing. With minimal success, you try to look unbothered on both accounts.

”I’m already sorry I was ever born,” you tell him. “Joke’s on you.”

Mom sets tonight’s dish of chicken parmesan in the middle of the table and sits at her own usual place. “This is different, kids. [Y/N], did you need a change of scenery?”

”Yeah, something like that.” 

You don’t make eye contact with her or with Dad, who you can tell has already checked out of the interaction from where he sits at the table’s head. He _has_ warmed up to Patrick and mostly gotten over the idea of your other friends; the issue is more that he’s gotten in the habit of ignoring everyone at mealtime, so now it’s become his time to ponder in his own head. If it weren’t that way, he’d likely have picked up on Patrick’s wandering hand in recent nights, so you can’t complain. You can imagine that dealing with a protective father is a bit too far into real boyfriend territory for Patrick at the moment. As agitated as he’s made you with all of his risky business for the past few weeks, you’re content with how things go when it’s just you and him. You’re not keen to scare him off.

He, of course, has none of the same reservations.

It comes down to your need to learn to stop challenging him. Through the first five minutes of dinner, you and Richie chatter away with Mom about how the day’s been, who did which chores, the standard. The problem is that there’s not much to talk about on this uneventful summer day. Without any other questions for either of her blood children, your mother turns to her semi-foster son, who fixes her with a smile that only you can read as manipulative. Inwardly, you curse.

”How are you holding up, honey?” she asks him. She’s come to like him more and more with all of the changes in how he acts. This is the first time you’re not grateful for her friendliness. You know he’s working her over to get to you. 

Patrick gives an exaggerated shrug. “Good enough, Mrs. T. A little lonely over at my house.”

She hums sympathetically. “I can only imagine, Patrick. I’m sorry.”

”No worries.” He waves a hand. Then the ball drops. “[Y/N] makes me forget _all_ about being lonely.”

The sleaze dripping off of his words is subtle but very much there. A quick scan of the room shows that you’re not the only one to read into it. Dad’s looking interested all of a sudden. Not in a good way. Richie appears to be holding back either snickers or vomit, and Mom just looks bewildered. You assume your own face is pretty definitively panicked. Patrick makes eye contact, keeping up that innocuous smile.

”How’s that?” Dad asks slowly.

In slow-motion, you watch Patrick open his mouth to seal the coffin, and you decide it just won’t do. Frantic, you interrupt.

”Patrick used to be really anxious about asking our other friends to hang out,” you say. It’s all made up on the spot. _Impressive_. You give yourself a figurative pat on the back for creativity under pressure. _I could be in an improv class_. “Since summer started, I’ve just tried to help him ask, you know, so he can stay more busy in the daytime and not be so lonely at home.”

Dad frowns. The overt suspicion bleeds out of his features, though, and you relax. Now he’s just being a dad. “I thought you and those boys went out more than enough already,” he says, gruff. In lieu of response, you shrug and pick at your food.

In a few minutes’ time once it’s clear that no one is going to pursue the topic, everybody focused on their own plates, you catch Patrick’s eye. _Fuck you,_ you mouth.

_Maybe later_, he answers. You feel your cheeks go red-hot. He can never let you win.

_Hey_. Richie’s lips move and grab your attention. _Stop being fucking gross_.

You try to telepathically communicate your desperation, but he just rolls his eyes. Patrick continues to ooze smugness.

It crosses your mind to lock the window tonight and show him who’s boss. The idea solidifies when he offers to help you do the dishes. He keeps on brushing past you the entire time. It’s subtle but very much on purpose, going unnoticed by the rest of the family, who disperse out of the dining/kitchen area. Its intensity doesn’t increase once you two end up alone, which actually makes it more infuriating. Each time he reaches past you to pick up a plate and dry it off, your skin prickles at the contact. Miraculously, you manage to suffer through it without taking the bait, neither getting pissed off nor jumping him. Both are tempting. 

When he finally leaves for the usual few-hour interval between meal and nighttime hangout, you can breathe again.

You don’t lock your window after all. You’re left pretty exasperated with yourself about it. Under the guise of a plan to let him in, tell him off for being a dick, and kick him out, you leave it open for Patrick, and he’s nothing if not a creature of habit. It doesn’t go as planned. If you’re honest, you never expect it to with him.

You’re pretending to flip through a magazine when you hear the grass rustle; a head of unruly dark hair pops up. _Showtime. Try embarrassing me again, bitch boy_.

”Patrick,” you hiss.

Always two steps ahead, he hauls himself over the windowsill and makes his way over to you. The loose, open stance he carries himself with is one he knows well. Angry as you are you can’t even care when he settles on the bed beside you and pulls you into a quick but deep kiss, one hand on either of your cheeks, close to tender.

_Bitch_, you think again, semi-coherent. He leans back and presses another peck to your forehead. _Try to get me to forget, huh. Not on my watch_. 

“Stop it.” You smack him away, not without reluctance, and equip yourself with what you hope is a withering look. “Quit pulling that shit. It’s not funny.”

”I didn’t say it was,” he says nonchalantly. Before you have the chance to stop it, he kisses you one more time. 

You wipe off your mouth and take another wild swat at him, raging now. “Patrick! You’re not allowed to just... do _that_ every time you make me mad!”

He clicks his tongue, pensive. “I think... I’m allowed to do what I want, [Y/N]. Right?”

On edge, you wait for him to make another move, but he seems to be nudging the ball into your court. It’s not as if you have much else to say now that you’ve told him to quit it. All you have left to do is maintain the glare. A short while of silence passes with the only interruptions being the slight breeze outside of the still-ajar window and faint music from Richie’s side of the wall.

Patrick does eventually come to understand that you’re not gonna bite. He’s never been one to back down. You sense a shift in his energy, a tensing of his shoulders, and he starts to adopt that familiar predatory set about himself. 

_He doesn't like to be ignored,_ your subconscious supplies. The more assertive part of your brain gives a scoff in response. _So what? I don’t like playing mind games where the outcome is my family finding out about him_. 

True. Unfortunately, what you don’t like, you sort of have to put up with. What Patrick doesn’t like, he changes in his favour. You don’t remember that until it’s too late. 

“Hey.” He speaks differently now. Less of the playfulness than when he’d apparently been trying to make you forget your anger. It’s lower, more heavy somehow. Your breath catches. “I asked you a question, doll. You don’t want to make me ask it again, do ya?”

You're hyperaware that he’s 1. very, very close to you, up on his knees to tower above where you sit crosslegged against the wall at the head of the bed, and 2. on your bed. This is uncharted territory. It feels different from anything that’s gone on this month, a brand new situation where you’re even less sure of what to expect than before. The pet name doesn’t help. He’s used it two or three times since the first, sparingly, like he can tell exactly what it does to you and he saves it for the right times.

_Of course he can tell. It’s Patrick, for Christ’s sake. This whole thing is like science to him._

Bitter, not a thought process that’s uncalled for, but you know as you think it that it’s not fully true. Yes, he gauges your reactions and plays you like a fiddle for fun. You know it means more to him than that, though, from the underlying feeling in everything he does, the kisses to distract you from irritation that are sweet in a way that can’t be faked. He’s not the same old Patrick. He’s just kind of a freakshow. Already the fight is leaving you, dampened down by the overwhelming sense of... something. There’s no word for how he’s affecting you right now. There’s just you and Patrick alone together on your bed with only the shitty bedside lamp to illuminate the scene.

He’s up closer now. You realize you’re on a clock, and he’s been counting the ticks while you’ve been lost in thought.

”No.” You have to clear your throat. “You don’t– You don’t have to ask again. You can do what you want.”

That’s not good enough. He keeps inching towards you. You keep shying away without meaning to until your back is pressed snug to the wall and there’s no further to go. 

His breath tickles your cheek. “With what?”

_With what? What? With— oh. Oh, yeah, alright. This is like a test_.

Preoccupied with the way he’s wedged himself between your knees and set a hand down to draw shapes on the upper portion of your thigh, you lag again. “Um. With me.”

”Say it all together now,” he instructs almost gently. Almost.

”You can do what you want with me.”

The genuineness of the smile that he rewards you with nearly blinds you. So does the next thing out of his mouth. “There’s a good girl.”

”Patrick,” you whisper. You’re not sure what it is you’re asking for. Thankfully, he knows without being told.

Though it’s as nice as always when he starts to kiss you, there’s a certain relief that doesn’t come as expected. You wait it out. A solid five minutes of making out pass by, enjoyable enough, but lacking, not in a way that you can put a name to but in a way that must impede your performance, if Patrick’s gradual loss of enthusiasm is a hint. He backs off after awhile. Better, he looks concerned for once.

”Are you good? Are you still mad?”

You should be. Never with him, though. He could burn the world to the ground and you’d sit down and wait to kiss and make up about it. 

You shake your head. “No, jackass, it’s fine. I just feel weird.”

”Weird how?” He draws back just far enough to survey your face.

”Not—“ You squirm. “Not like I normally feel when we’re doing that. Feels like something’s missing?” It comes out as a question. Patrick, scrutinizing your expression and what you’re trying to explain, starts to get all fucking smug again. “God, what is it now?”

“Something’s missing, huh.” He pronounces every syllable. “You need more?”

_More what?_ But you don’t have to ask. Whatever you don’t know, he does, and he pulls himself back almost on top of you with renewed excitement, startling a muffled gasp from you. He’s got more of a purpose to his movements. You note the slide of his arm around and under your back now that he’s got you pinned down almost horizontal, the other arm staying close to your front, snaking down to the narrow space between bodies to toy with the hem of your t-shirt. A thrill goes through you at the first touch of fingers on your hip, skin on skin, the shirt being rucked up out of the way.

If the kissing has ever been risqué before — Patrick’s positioning is always a small ways past being child-appropriate — it’s downright dirty this time around. The slow move of his lips against yours is pleasant, but it’s nothing compared to the new addition he’s introducing, gradually reaching to feel out the length of your upper body, taking his sweet time to touch down at your bra. 

_This is what was missing, I guess_. You’re practically delirious in your satisfaction. Patrick is just about your favourite person on Earth. This weird thing that’s happening between you two is awesome. This, though, right here and now, goes above and beyond. He touches you like he’s starved for it, all the while letting you cling around his neck and kiss him silly.

It’s all a lot to process, so it’s not your fault that you build some pent-up energy. You break away for a second just to murmur an exhilarated “Patrick!” in a tone barely recognizable to your own ears. If anything, it’s an encouragement, but it happens to coincide with the first slip of a finger beneath the underwire, and Patrick takes it as the opposite.

”Sorry.” He scoots so far backwards so fast that you’re left laying with both hands still in the air where they’d been holding him to you. You try to catch your breath and catch up with him at the same time. He’s got his eyes downcast and a dust of pink over his cheekbones, wiping at his lips, which are as swollen as yours feel. “Got a little carried away.”

”It’s fine.” You start our too loud. Softer, you go on, “It’s fine. I’m really not gonna complain.”

There must be a conflict between new, slightly-more-moral Patrick and old Patrick, you can deduce by the sudden daze he’s gone into. Taking advantage of the moment, you sit up straight and tug your shirt back down to its rightful place, heat rising up to your face. With the lovestruck haze fading, you’re finding the capacity for shame.

_It was really fucking great, though. Solid nine out of ten_.

Both of the quarrelling Patricks appear to come to an agreement. He gives a minute shake of his head and focuses back on you. “Yeah? You liked it, did you?”

You turn up your nose to avoid him noticing your blush. “Yeah, whatever.”

”Good,” he says, uncharacteristically sincere. You allow him half of a hesitant smile and he returns a whole one. He motions for you to come and sit by him. “Come here.”

You spend a long time tucked beneath his arm, reading a book, him peeking over your shoulder to follow along. There’s no more kissing for the evening. Both of you are just fine to stay like this. It does cross your mind that you didn’t get the issue of his pointed PDA sorted out, but that doesn’t seem important for the time being. What matters is that your ten-year-old self’s dream is coming true, Patrick holding you close on a hot summer night like you mean something to him. You do. You’re certain of it and only growing in confidence with every day that passes. 

It hurts to have to kick him out, which you anticipate and wind up putting off for a long time. The clock reads one in the morning when you finally latch the window and watch him saunter out of sight below. In an instant, you’re exhausted. You curl up in a blissful fog over the spot he’d been on in your bed. It’s still warm.

_I’m in trouble_ is your last thought before you fall asleep. You don’t mean it the way you used to when Patrick was more likely to hurt you than anything else. You mean it the same way your mom says it when she tells and retells the story of meeting your dad when someone asks at a family get-together — “I saw him look at me with that Tozier mischief, and I knew I was in trouble!”

Trouble is a good thing some of the time.


End file.
